Even the most basic communication skills require brainpower. Picking up a phone and dialing a loved one? Brainpower. Taking the concept of the brain’s involvement in day-to-day communication a few steps further, Brazilian artist Carla Pires de Carvalho Fernandes created a brain phone booth. Not only was the booth created, but it was installed as a part of a phone booth redesign competition in Sao Paulo, Brazil. Sponsored by telecom company Vivo, this brain appears to be available for public calling. When in Sao Paulo, look for the brain-shaped phone booth.
Poland’s Wieliczka Salt Mine: An Underground Wonder
There’s something alluring about underground spaces. Whether it’s the ancient subterranean cities of Cappadocia in Turkey or the alternative art galleries of the Paris catacombs, humanity’s works underground take on a strange and mysterious feeling.
Perhaps there is no underground space more strange and mysterious than the Wieliczka Salt Mine near Krakow, Poland. This UNESCO World Heritage Site was a salt mine from the 13th century until as recently as 1996. In that time the miners excavated 190 miles of tunnels reaching a depth of more than 1,000 feet. During the mine’s high point in the 16th and 17th centuries, some 2,000 miners worked there digging out 30,000 tons a year.
Salt was hugely important in the premodern world. Not only was it vital for nutrition, but it also helped to preserve meat and other edibles in the days before refrigeration. Several countries, including Poland and Ethiopia, even used salt as currency in addition to coins.
Not content with simply mining salt and making a living, the salt miners carved elaborate statues and scenes out of the salt, including a large chapel complete with “crystal” chandeliers made with purified rock salt. The salt in its natural state is gray, and so it resembles granite. Many of the sculptures are religious in nature, showing Christ, the Virgin Mary and the saints. Others show miners and folk figures such as gnomes.
%Gallery-158467%The guided tour takes intrepid travelers on a 1.9-mile route through various tunnels, rooms and even an underground lake. Constantly descending, the group makes their way through dozens of decorated rooms. As this video shows, it’s an unforgettable experience. Also check out the photo gallery for some excellent images of this odd attraction.
The simpler carvings done in the Renaissance and early modern periods are the most interesting to my eye, since they were crafted by regular people out of faith and a sense of fun. Now contemporary artists are getting in on the act and there are many new sculptures, including one of Pope John Paul II, who was from Poland and visited the mine before he became pontiff. The centuries-old mine is continuing to grow and develop.
Interested in seeing more strange underground dwellings? Check out our articles on salt mine tours and underground cities.
Video: How To Make Crop Circles
Spring has sprung, crops are growing, and it’s time once again for everyone’s favorite landscape art – crop circles!
The year is already starting off well with some lovely examples in England, Italy and other countries. Numbers will increase in the summer as crops grow and provide a better palette. Crop Circle Connector keeps a running tally so you can see what’s up in the world of cereology, the study of, well, you know.
Now before anyone starts filling the comments section with wild-eyed tales of UFOs and Earth energies, let me rain on your parade by saying that crop circles were debunked a long time ago. The Circlemakers group has taken credit for many of them and they have even posted a beginner’s guide to making crop circles. There are also plenty of how-to videos, like this one commissioned by a British tabloid. It will show you, step-by-step, how to annoy farmers and entrance crystal-clutching New Agers.
This video was made way back in 2001, yet still there are superstitious dupes paranormal investigators who insist that while many are faked, some crop circles “cannot be explained.” As I noted in an earlier post, that’s like saying that while we have documentation for the construction of most medieval cathedrals, there are no blueprints or payrolls for other cathedrals and therefore they must have been made by aliens.
But who cares? Crop circles are beautiful and fun. It raises awareness of the natural landscape. Even better, the crops can still be harvested. No wheat was harmed in the making of this video. Now get out there and start circling!
Chinese Architects Pose As Tourists In Attempt To Steal Plans For Austrian City
It’s not uncommon for different cultures to influence each other and even borrow ideas. However, China is taking this to the next level by literally transforming the industrial city of Huizhou into a replica of Hallstatt in Austria.
According to the Daily Mail, the plan, which will cost over $7 billion, was found out about when blueprints were left behind at a Hallstatt hotel. Apparently, the Chinese had been visiting the city for three years, getting the necessary information to recreate the buildings and environment – even including an artificial lake to match.
So, how do locals of Hallstatt feel about China’s plan? Most are pretty proud, actually.
Says Ingrid Janu, the owner of a souvenir store in Hallstatt, “We’re happy they find it beautiful enough to copy.”
However, there are those who are upset over the sneaky approach used by the Chinese.
“I don’t like the idea of knowing that a team was present here for years measuring, and photographing and studying us,” comments Monika Wenger, a hotel owner.
You have to admit, she does have a point.
What’s your opinion?
[Image via pipimaru]
Shroud Of Turin One Of 40 Fakes, Historian Says
The Shroud of Turin has been causing controversy for centuries now. The linen cloth, measuring 14 feet by 4 feet, has what appear to be bloodstains on it. Also, the image of a wounded man can be seen, an image that becomes clearer when looked at as a photographic negative.
Now historian Antonio Lombatti of the Università Popolare in Parma, Italy, says the Shroud of Turin is a fake, and not only that, it’s not a very original one. About forty pieces of cloth purported to be the burial shroud of Jesus circulated in Europe during the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Religious relics were popular then and now.
Lombatti say the shroud was given to a French knight in Turkey in 1346. This is the first concrete record of the Shroud and agrees with radiocarbon analysis of the linen. In 1988, the University of Oxford, University of Arizona, and the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology independently tested parts of the Shroud and each said it dates to sometime between 1260-1390.
The photographic negative image was well within the ability of medieval technology as far back as the eleventh century A.D., according to one researcher who made his own shrouds using medieval techniques.
Also, John 19:40 and 20:6-7 clearly state that Jesus was wrapped in several strips of linen, not just one, and that his head was wrapped in a separate cloth.
None of this, of course, will dissuade the thousands of believers who flock to the Cathedral of Saint John the Baptist in Turin, where the Shroud is kept and (rarely) exhibited.
[Photo courtesy Wikimedia Commons]