Hobo Nickels are re-engraved/re-carved old buffalo nickels that were minted in the USA from 1917-1938. The tradition started during the Great Depression with the traveling Hobos who would alter the face of the nickel and then trade them for necessities.
(via achscheissdrauf)
Queen Elizabeth II looking suitably majestic on her coronation day. June 2nd, 1953.
This portrait echoes the centuries-old tradition of depicting rulers in profile on coins and medals. Dramatic lighting highlights the Queen’s youthful features. The prime minister, Winston Churchill, voiced the feelings of many when he described her as a metaphorical guardian angel: ‘The gleaming figure whom Providence has brought to us in times when the present is hard and the future veiled.’
LONG LIVE THE QUEEN!
![carolathhabsburg:
[Edward VIII, when Prince of Wales] and his little Kangoroo “Digger”, a gift from the Australian people to the prince. 1920s.
Poor digger died shortly after this picture was taken, because he ate poisonous leaves.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lp7fqiStxZ1qzjmo0o1_1280.jpg)
[Edward VIII, when Prince of Wales] and his little Kangoroo “Digger”, a gift from the Australian people to the prince. 1920s.
Poor digger died shortly after this picture was taken, because he ate poisonous leaves.
Human bones lie inside a log coffin at Phnom Pel—one of four newly dated burial sites that mark the remnants of a vanished culture from Cambodia. The burials date to the last days of the Khmer Empire, which controlled large swaths of Southeast Asia from its Cambodian base at Angkor, more than a hundred miles away. However, the empire had little cultural impact on the mountainside grave-builders, the study team believes. For one thing, the people of Angkor followed the Hindu and Buddhist practice of cremation, Beavan said.
(Source: National Geographic)
This rather sinister image is one of the biggest mysteries in the history of western cartography. Most often referred to simply as the Fool’s Cap Map of the World, it is unknown why, when, where and by whom it was made. The only thing that can be said about it with some certainty is that it dates from ca. 1580-1590. The map shows the world ‘dressed up’ in the traditional garb of a court jester … The face is hidden by the map, giving the whole image an ominous, threatening quality.
The archetype of the Fool, presented here in his incarnation as the court jester, is a first indicator of the map’s deeper meaning. In previous ages, the Fool was a court figure allowed to mock majesty and to speak truth to power. These were rare and useful correctives to the corrupting absolutism of the monarchies of the day. But criticism of this sort was only possible if it was de-fanged by the grotesque appearance of the Fool - preferably a hunchbacked, slightly loopy-headed dwarf, i.e. someone not to be taken too seriously.
All of this would have been common knowledge to the people viewing this map in the 16th century. The uncomfortable truth told by this map is that the world is a sombre, irrational and dangerous place, and that life on it is nasty, brutish and short. The world is, quite literally, a foolish place. MORE.
Haha! Nah, I like to spend my free time reading about all things weird and wonderful anyway, the Emporium is just a place to store and share those things!
‘Taken from the catacombs of Rome in the 17th century, the relics of twelve martyred saints were then attired in the regalia of the period before being interred in a remote church on the German/Czech border.’
This portrait represents a Hungarian hussar, by tradition Gregor Baci, who apparently survived a piercing injury with a lance to the right side of his face. The injury may have occurred during a jousting tournament or while fighting the Ottoman Turks. The painting was created by an unknown artist in the 16th century and first listed in 1622.
The portrait is a part of the Chamber of Art and Curiosities, a cabinet of curiosities created by Ferdinand II, Archduke of Austria in the 16th century. Representing an excellent example of a late Renaissance encyclopedic collection of its genre.
What is this!?
Puzzlewood is an ancient woodland site, near Coleford in the Forest of Dean, Gloucestershire, England. The site, covering 14 acres, shows evidence of open cast iron ore mining dating from the Roman period, and possibly earlier.
In 1848 some workmen, after moving a block of stone in the woods, found a small cavity in the rocks. In this cavity, hidden away, were three earthenware jars containing over 3,000 Roman coins. No-one knows why the coins were hidden away in the cliff face nor by whom.
J. R. R. Tolkien, a frequent visitor to the Forest of Dean, may have visited Puzzlewood, and many believe Puzzlewood was the inspiration for the fabled forests of Middle-earth, such as the Old Forest, Mirkwood, Fangorn or Lothlórien contained within The Lord of the Rings. J.K Rowling is also said to have visited Puzzlewood, and it may have been this that influenced her idea of The Forbidden Forest in the Harry Potter books.
(Source: Wikipedia)
“As the class of fools is much larger than that of idiots, so that of simpletons is much larger than that of fools.”
How farsighted our ancestors of 1848 were, to commission such a report! It’s about time for another one, I think. It might help us deal with our current political, cultural, economic, interpersonal and environmental messes. The report is fascinating reading from start to finish, giving a wonderful taxonomy of idiots, such as that quoted above.
The report is available in its ingenious entirety courtesy of Google Books HERE.
(You gotta admit, the logic of that first sentence is pretty airtight…)
True, January 1963
(via weirdvintage)
The earliest known examples of tattoos were the Egyptians, having being present on numerous female mummies that date as far back as 2000 B.C. It was only until “Iceman”, a frozen body found at the Italian-Austrian border in 1991, was discovered with patterns adorned across various parts of his body that presented evidence of tattoos existing much earlier. Scientists have carbon dated “Iceman” to around 5,200 years old.
Mary Baker (1791 – 1864) was a noted impostor who went by the name Princess Caraboo. She pretended to be from a faraway island and fooled a British town for some months. On 3 April 1817, a cobbler from Gloucester met an apparently disoriented young woman with exotic clothes who was speaking a language no one could understand. Samuel Worrall, county magistrate, who could not understand her either, took care of her; all he could determine was that she called herself Caraboo, that she identified a drawing of a pineapple with the word ‘ananas’, which means pineapple in many Indo-European languages. She was arrested for vagrancy.
During her imprisonment, Portuguese sailor Manuel Eynesso said he knew the language and translated her story. According to him, she was Princess Caraboo from the island of Javasu in the Indian Ocean. She had been captured by pirates and had jumped overboard and swam ashore. The Worralls brought Caraboo back to their home. For the next ten weeks, this representative of exotic royalty was a favourite of the local dignitaries. She used a bow and arrow, fenced, swam naked and prayed to a god, whom she termed Allah Tallah.
Eventually the truth came out. A certain Mrs. Neale recognised her from the picture in the Bristol Journal and informed her hosts. The would-be princess was actually a cobbler’s daughter, Mary Baker from Devon. She had been a servant girl in various places all over England but had not found a place to stay. She had invented a fictitious language out of imaginary and gypsy words and created an exotic character. The British press had a field day at the expense of the duped rustic middle-class. MORE.
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