Author: Ms. R.

The city of College Park in Maryland is filled with intertwining running and biking trails—former railroad tracks, the Paint Branch trails, the Anacostia Tributary trails. The Prince George’s County Department of Parks and Recreation works hard to maintain them all, and even decorates them with natural artworks through a program called “Art on the Trails.” This initiative takes found objects in nature and recycles or repurposes them for our aesthetic pleasure.  One such artwork can be found just off……

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On the outskirts of Rome, along the ancient Via Cassia, a large sepulchral monument cannot be missed. For centuries, it has been known as the Tomb of Nero. But this is actually the final resting place of proconsul Publius Vibius Marianus, not the famous Roman emperor. The monument dates back to the late 3rd century, around 200 years after Nero’s death in 68. The belief that Nero could come back from the dead was popular after the death of the……

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Millennia before Maya city centers like Tikal and Chichen Itza took shape, a massive earthwork was forged on the gulf side of Mexico, in the state of Tabasco. Over 4,500 feet long and up to 50 feet tall, the raised platform sat just below the surface of what is today an inhabited part of the bucolic Mexican coast. The site, called Aguada Fénix, is about 3,000 years old, and was one of 21 ceremonial centers discovered in 2017 using……

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With gyms, pools, and spin studios around the world temporarily shuttered, it can be hard to find ways to exercise the way we used to. Atlas Obscura is taking this time to look back at different groups from history, to see what lessons they might have for working out in ways that help us maintain social distance. Long before sports leagues around the world were abruptly put on hold, and centuries before they were founded, Mesoamerican cultures were having……

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You made bread. It may have been sourdough—as dense as dark matter, and much trickier than it looked from the recipe—or oil-slick focaccia, or no-knead white, with yawning holes in the crumb. Whatever it was, you made bread, and now you have too much of it, and it feels like a waste to throw it out. (At the same time, it’s growing increasingly stale.) Home cooks around the world have faced some version of this dilemma for pretty much……

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The orb has not always lived in a museum, and it was not always so obscurely tucked away in a room that people pass by on their way to other things. It was once mounted on what was commonly called “Saint Peter’s Needle” during the Middle Ages—the obelisk that now stands prominently in the center of St. Peter’s Square.  The monolith was brought to Rome from the fabled Alexandria by Caligula in the year 37, ostensibly to honor the……

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At an unusually unruly library in Virginia, there’s food everywhere and droppings on the floor. Sometimes, visitors stand on the reception desk and squabble with abandon. Welcome to Bird Library, a large bird feeder designed to resemble a public reading room, where feathered patrons from finches to sparrows (and the occasional squirrel) congregate. Perched in a backyard in the city of Charlottesville, it is the passion project of librarian Rebecca Flowers and woodworker Kevin Cwalina, who brought together their……

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On Gallows Down, south of Inkpen, the Inkpen Long Barrow stands on the ridge between Walbury Hillfort and Inkpen Hill. Atop the barrow is another curious monument, known as the Combe Gibbet. This is its story. George Broomham and Dorothy Newman were hopelessly in love. It was a deep love, a blind love, and, most importantly, a forbidden love. Dorothy was a widow who lived in the nearby village of Inkpen. George, a farm laborer, lived in Combe, on……

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In St. Louis‘s Bellefontaine Cemetery stands a beautiful marble sculpture encased in a stone chamber with a glass window, commonly referred to as “Bessie, the Girl in the Shadow Box.” It does not depict a person buried there, but a girl for whom a local man longed. Herman Luyties, owner of the first proprietary drugstore in St. Louis and one of the pioneers of homeopathy in the area, visited Italy in the early 1900s. During this trip he fell……

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Florence, the cradle of the Renaissance, is admired around the world for its imposing monuments and public museums. But beyond the city’s most famous collections, privately-owned collections and art foundations are an essential part of the culture of Tuscany’s capital. One of the most fascinating private house museums in Florence is the Massimo Listri Foundation, which is located in the heart of the historic Oltrarno district.  Listri is an acclaimed architectural photographer who is known for his majestic and……

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For centuries, the canyon and pool now known as Keyhole Sink was a place where the Cohonina people hunted and conducted religious ceremonies. Petroglyphs at the site dating to around 1,000 years ago indicate that hunters used the natural dead-end to corner prey that gathered at the watering hole. Curiously, despite the area being a rare source of fresh water in the arid region, archaeological evidence doesn’t indicate that people settled permanently at the site. The images marked onto……

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