Author: Ms. R.

The ancient Egyptians left writing everywhere, with hieroglyphics carved painstakingly onto stone steles and miraculously preserved in papyrus. Though historians are able to study ancient texts on subjects from trade to funeral rites, one category is largely missing from the record: recipes. Without any textual directions or menus, historians have looked elsewhere to unlock the secrets of a 5,000-year-old culinary culture. As it turns out, paintings on tomb walls can provide a rare glimpse into one of the oldest……

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For the past several weeks, we’ve been taking a virtual road trip across the United States, getting reacquainted with some of the strangest and most enchanting sights America has to offer. We’re nearly halfway through this project—50 States of Wonder, our guide to fascinating things from coast to coast and beyond. Many readers have journeyed with us as we visited things that rise high above North Dakota’s flat landscape, Oregon’s most spellbinding holes, truly trippy art in Kansas, and……

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Monique Wells moved from Texas to Paris in 1992 for a job, and she ended up staying indefinitely. Like generations of Americans before her, Wells and her husband fell in love with the City of Light. But since she went there as a veterinary pathobiologist, and not as a tourist, it was years before she asked herself where she’d go if she only had a few days in Paris. Then Wells and her husband, Tom, started a company that……

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Located three miles west of Covington, the Humpback Bridge in Alleghany County is the oldest of seven covered bridges still standing in Virginia. It’s also one of two remaining cambered and covered wooden bridges in the United States. For over 163 years, the bridge endured catastrophic floods, fires, and decay. These elements have destroyed all other covered bridges in this region of the Shenandoah Valley. Its last brush with destruction occurred in September 2016, when the bridge again survived……

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In a little corner of Larne, a local resident transformed a former grass verge into a community garden for all to enjoy. The garden in question sits at the bottom corner of the Mill Brae, at the junction with Lower Cairncastle Road, next to Larne Grammar Secondary School. Local resident Ann Magee single-handedly converted the area into a floral paradise with wildflowers, potted plants, garden ornaments, decorative plants, fairy lights, and paving stones. Magee originally created the garden to……

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The Great War (World War I) has etched its memory into the lives of the people of the Northern Ireland town of Carrickfergus. As a show of appreciation to the local lives lost in the century-old conflict, this mural was commissioned in 2014. It shows a lone soldier standing solemnly beside a single cross raised over a field of poppies as the sun sets beyond. The foreground flowers are made of wood to create a 3D effect, and there……

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Installed in 2010 as part of the 100th anniversary of the country’s National Autonomous University (UNAM), this pink and blue neon piece is the work of artist Thomas Glassford, a Mexico City resident born in Laredo, Texas. It’s named after a Mexica (the pre-Columbian peoples better known internationally as Aztecs) god, revered for a legend in which he gave his skin to shelter humanity. His flaying is tied to the peeling of maize, with Xipe Tótec being a representative……

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Stonehenge is a world-famous landmark that features several replicas all across the globe. Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, also has its own version of the site known as Ada Stonehenge. The installation was crafted by sculptor Ratko Vulanović in 1992 and now stands at the entrance of Ada Ciganlija, a popular recreational zone. Vulanović stated that the United Kingdom‘s original Stonehenge was his inspiration, but also a hearth from his childhood. In his family home, several stones were typically……

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The tombstone of the painter Beauford Delaney, in Division 86 of the Cimetière Parisien de Thiais, carries a three-word epigraph: “I am home.” Delaney’s residence changed several times: born in Knoxville, Tennessee, he lived in Boston and New York before making Paris his home for the last 26 years of his life. Delaney moved there in 1953, encouraged by his close friend James Baldwin, who had settled in the City of Light a few years before. He continued painting……

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