Recent Posts
A Lynching Memorial Is Opening.
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — In a plain brown building sits an office run by the Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles, a place for people who have been held accountable for their crimes and duly expressed remorse. Just a few yards up the street lies a …
The Silver Bull
On his knees, a silver bull holds a spouted vessel. This six-inch figurine was found near Susa in Iran. The bull dates to the earliest Elamite culture, 3100–2900 BC, known as proto-Elamite. Traces of cloth were found, perhaps it was intentionally buried as part of a ceremony. — Ticia Verveer
Kokoshnik, Ukraine Headdress
Photos of tribal clothing like this make me think about empires and their need to turn those who resist them into evil. Such propaganda where tribes of people are renamed demons and devils. As you dig into these cultures, their stories are really amazing. Elder …
How Vietnamese Cooks Upped the Ante on the Cajun Crawfish Boil
This year, Eater is teaming up with James Beard award-winning Southern Foodways Alliance to spotlight their documentary work, premiering a short film every other week. This next piece focuses on Vietnamese-style crawfish boils, which have become a mainstay in Houston, a city that boasts one …
Knifemaker Explains The Difference Between Chef’s Knives
Knifemaker Will Griffin of W.A. Griffin Bladeworks shows Epicurious how to choose the best Chef’s Knife for your culinary needs. The bladesmith provides an overview of the differences between carbon steel and stainless steel, blade shape, blade thickness, blade length, double bevel vs single bevel, hidden tang vs full tang handles, knife balance, and much more.
1911 – A Trip Through New York City
Old film of New York City in the year 1911. Print has survived in mint condition. Slowed down footage to a natural rate and added in sound for ambiance. This film was taken by the Swedish company Svenska Biografteatern on a trip to America. Read …
Drawing protective symbols with sand in Poland
Drawing protective or decorative symbols with sand is an old custom from the rural parts of Poland, first described by ethnographers in 19th century. In Polish it’s usually called ‘sypanie piaskiem’ (what translates simply to ‘pouring of sand’). It used to be common to many regions located in the modern-day central Poland. This tradition started disappearing first due to changes of construction materials inside cottages and their surroudings (explained below). Later it died out almost completely during the secular communist rule and the rapid industrialization of the Polish countryside after World War 2.
The co-called ‘sand carpets’ were prepared for religious feasts, most notably for Easter but also for other religious spring feasts, of which many bear traces to pre-Christian Slavic beliefs (read for example: the Green Week or the Polish celebrations of Corpus Christi).
Originally the ‘sand carpets’ decorated only interiors of rural cottages. The custom was surviving for the longest time in those villages that were still using a klepisko (an old type of a hard earthen floor inside houses). Sand poured on such a klepisko was behaving differently and staying longer than on the modern types of hard floors.
Archival photo taken in Kujawy, 1972, from the collections of Museum of Kujawy and Dobrzyń Lands.