antiquity

Big Question

How Did Caesarean Sections Get Their Name?

Reader Alistair wrote in wondering about the supposed origins of C-Sections: “Was Julius Caesar really born this way and is it the origin of the medical procedure?”... READ ON

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Witchcraft and the Art of Winemaking

Maybe you’ve heard a bad bottle of wine being described as “corked.” This is the fault of TCA, a chemical compound that contaminates wine barrels and corks, giving vino an odor similar to Grandma’s dirty basement or a wet dog. Corked wine isn’t pleasant, but it certainly sounds more appealing than a bottle filled with witch pee—reportedly a common problem in 16th century Italy, when people thought that witches, after retiring from their midnight parties on the Satanic Sabbath, would break into... READ ON

Big Question

Why Don't Valentine Hearts Look Like Real Hearts?

Heart image via ShutterstockLove is in the air today, and images of two-lobed hearts are all over everything: candy, cards, decorations, you name it. That the heart is symbolic of love and passion isn’t surprising. Ancient Greek and Roman thinkers, including Aristotle, thought the organ was the center of all emotions. Why the heart symbol you see everywhere in February doesn’t look anything like an actual human heart is a little less clear, though.The symbol goes at least as far back as the... READ ON

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The Extraordinary Catalog of Peculiar Inventions

Julia Suits has assembled a book filled with ads for real prank machines used in fraternal lodges in the early part of the 20th century, complete with an introduction by David Copperfield. This volume is extremely appropriate for readers of mental_floss, as it's full of trivia on weird inventions, the history of pranks, and a very special form of Americana. The book is bizarre and hilariously perverse, packed with clippings from catalogs sent to the high muckety-mucks at the Modern Woodmen of America,... READ ON

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(Some) Dead Sea Scrolls Available Online

It was bound to happen: you can now access the Dead Sea Scrolls online. Well, some of them. The scrolls as a collection include over 900 texts, many of them fragmentary, so what we've got here is a starting point. In a collaboration between the Israel Museum and Google, five of the most significant scrolls have been digitized and presented online in a unique Google browsing format -- you can mouse over lines of text and read translations, zoom in, and learn more about any given passage. There are also... READ ON

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The Bodacious Letter B

Always a bridesmaid and never a bride, B is the also-ran, the second best, the afterthought, the sidekick to the alphaletter A. When things fall apart, we go to Plan B; we’ll watch B-movies with B-list actors on basic cable if we can’t fall asleep; we’ll pass on grade-B meats and eggs and B-rated bonds. Despite its second banana billing, B has shown some incredible staying power. The oldest B appears, like A, in one of the earliest known alphabet inscriptions, discovered in central Egypt and... READ ON

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Discovering Forgotten Artifacts Worth Millions

About a month ago, I shared the story of a family discovering what is likely a lost Michelangelo painting that could be worth up to $300 million. Then Colin told you about the brother and sister who discovered a family vase worth $69 million. Just to show that this sort of thing is more common than you think, here's another example of an exceptionally valuable artifact that was just waiting to be discovered. During World War II, a Parisian woman fleeing from the Nazis left her apartment, never to return... READ ON

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Tonight on PBS: NOVA - Riddles of the Sphinx

So what's the story with the Great Sphinx? Who built it, when, and why? And what happened to its nose? Those are all riddles answered in tonight's episode of NOVA -- but there's much more interesting sphinx trivia in the program. Mark your calendars! It airs tonight, January 19, on PBS. If you miss the broadcast, check the PBS website as the entire program will stream for a limited time online beginning the day after it airs. Discussed in tonight's NOVA episode: how the Great Sphinx was, for a... READ ON

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The Late Movies: Top 10 Antiques Roadshow Valuations

The antiques world was rocked (okay, more like gently bumped) when a recent episode of Antiques Roadshow estimated a woman's collection of carved Chinese jade objects at $710,000 to $1.07 million. Either figure would make it the highest-appraised item in Antiques Roadshow history. Unfortunately, when the woman actually sold the items at auction, she only got $494,615. Why the discrepancy? It's complicated -- read about it here if you want the blow-by-blow from real antiques experts. Meanwhile, below I... READ ON

List

State Plates: All 50 States in Convenient Souvenir Plate Form

You've definitely seen them: commemorative state plates featuring landmarks and slogans from a particular state. I call them "state plates," but the official term among collectors is "souvenir state plates." They're often displayed in kitchens, and the designs range from kitschy to classy to impossibly bizarre -- see below for examples of each. According to CountryHome (in their "What's Hot Now" feature!), state plates have been around since the 1870s: Souvenir state plates date back to the 1870s.... READ ON