Who will be this man's nemesis? (Photo: Rud-gr on Wikipedia)

Hulk Hogan and Macho Man. Lakers and Celtics. Potter and Malfoy. There is virtually no end to the classic rivalries that have existed across sports of all kinds. However there are a handful of odd regional "sports" and contests that could use the drama of a heated clash of egos. Be it swimming laps in bogs or rolling oranges down a hill, it would be a riot to see these five strange competitions get their own set of frenemies.

WORLD WORM CHARMING CHAMPIONSHIPS
Yun Huang Yong on Flickr

Charming, right? (Photo: Yun Huang Yong on Flickr)

Worm-charming, as odd as it seems, is not only a kind of sport, it is even an occupation in some places. The basic idea behind the squirming pastime is to stick a for in the ground strike it to create vibrations that drive worms to the surface. Also known as worm-fiddling or worm-grunting, each charmer seems to have their own exacting method of creating the most enticing vibrations. There are variations in the size of the rods, the rhythm in which they are struck, and the tools or materials used. No matter the minutia of the method, the contestants in the world championship are given a 3x3 foot plot of damp soil and told to go to town. The current world record holder created a siren song that lured out 567 worms in the allotted time. Salieri and Mozart it is not, but a little of that spirit couldn't hurt.     

All these people are making sweet, sweet earth music. (Photo: Graham Shaw on Wikipedia)

THE GREAT SONOMA COUNTY HANDCAR RACES
Santa Rosa, California

Someone certainly needs to have a beef with these guys. (Photo: David Berry on Flickr)

Santa Rosa, California's yearly Handcar Regatta is not so much a race, but it is still a competition to see who can create the weirdest and wildest railway handcar on X-number of wheels. Sort of a cross between Burning Man and the Mermaid Parade, participants in the festival build all sorts of contraptions, usually with a heavy theme be it, Italy, pinball, or space. The Handcar Regatta stopped in 2011 only to return as the The Great Sonoma County Handcar Race in 2013. There does not yet seem to be a date for the 2015 race, but when and if it returns lets hope we can see the kind of inventive Victorian rivalry that made Edison and Tesla such charming enemies.   

Owl bet that car can't fly. (Photo: David Berry on Flickr)

STILTON CHEESE ROLLING CHAMPIONSHIP
Stilton, England

I think these guys are supposed to be wizards. (Photo: Property of stilton.org)

Strangely, cheese-rolling competitions take place in a few places around the world, but none is better known that the one that takes place in the English village famous for it's veiny fromage. No one is quite sure how old the tradition is or who exactly began it, but each year people show up in droves to see teams of costumed cheese rollers guide a wooden block of replica cheese down a public street. Each member of the team has to come in contact with the proxy cheese before it hits the finish line, and the team to guide it across wins. While there are undoubtedly competitive feelings on the day of the competition, what the cheese-rolling festival needs is a privileged winning team for everyone else to compete against. Think of the New York Yankees.     

I'm starting a rivalry with ethnic-inspired costumes. (Photo: property of stilton.org)

TOTNES ORANGE RACES
Totnes, Devon 

No one has been this serious about oranges since scurvy was a thing. (Photo: Derek Harper on Geograph.org)

Speaking of contests where you roll weird food down a hill, the orange races in Devon are primed to create competition between runners. This citrus-y race sees contestants roll, throw, and kick ripe fruit down a modern street, in honor of a legend involving Sir Francis Drake coarsely upending an orange cart, sending oranges cascading down the street. Whoever can get a complete orange across the finish line, whether or not it was the one they started with, wins! Given how many of the rolling fruit are smashed or crushed during the trip this is no easy feat. The ability to use an opponents fruit makes this contest perfect for some classic heel turns.  

Prefontaine this is not. (Photo: Derek Harper on Geograph.org)

WORLD BOG SNORKELING CHAMPIONSHIP
Llanwrtyd Wells, Wales

The bog itself is a sort of nemesis. (Photo: Rud-gr on Wikipedia)

Ah yes, the fine art of bog snorkeling. Each year, would-be-bog-monsters flock to the small Welsh town of Llanwrtyd Wells to take a dip in the local bog. A 180-foot trench is dug in the stinking peat and competitors dive in to see who can swim down the lane the fastest. Like many relatively silly competitions (this one is said to have been started by a bar bet in the 1970s, a number of the participants come dressed in costume to cheer on the swimmers. There has yet to be a Michael Phelps of the bog snorkeling championship for everyone to rally behind or compete with, but it seems like a ripe opportunity for some (literally) dirty tricks.    

 
Bog snorkeling fans seem to be somewhat subdued. (Photo: Ethreon on Flickr)

The official largest gingerbread village, from 2014. It contained 1,0003 buildings. (Photo: Courtesy Jon Lovitch.)

The world’s largest gingerbread village is in Prescott, Arizona. Or Trivandrum, India. Or Bergen, Norway. Depending on who you ask, the world’s largest gingerbread village could be a lot of places.

 The only opinion that matters, though, is that of the Guinness World Records. And Guinness says it’s in Queens.

 Enormous rocking chairs, obscene artificial ducks, Brobgingnagian rubber band balls; it seems as though the human race is hardwired to build giant-friendly versions of boring things. Most of these manifest as roadside attractions; you might not have planned on having lunch in Riverside, California, until the world’s largest paper cup inspires a closer look and a short stopover.  There are over 160 highway monuments of this sort in the United States alone, supersizing everything from boll weevils to weather vanes. 

That at least in part explains the ferocity with which Bergen, in particular, defends its “world’s largest” claim. Every winter since 1991, its citizens have banded together to create a gingerbread village of mammoth proportions. Called (delightfully) Pepperkakebyen by the locals who help build it, the edible edifices had long been a point of civic pride and a top tourist draw. The city’s promoters give it prominent billing, and at 70 kroener (about $9) a head, it presumably ends up driving decent revenue back into the city coffers. 

It’s a feel-good story, a community coming together year after year, individuals contributing their small piece to the greater good. It also annoyed the hell out of Jon Lovitch. 

“It was about five years ago that I started hearing false claims about the ‘world’s biggest,’" says Lovitch, the creator of Gingerbread Lane and current holder of the Guinness world record for largest gingerbread village. ”It started to gnaw at me; people were posting on web pages and news articles ‘biggest in the world,’ and it wasn’t even half the size of what I did.”

 What Lovitch had done, specifically, was singlehandedly create gingerbread villages numbering dozens of houses every year for the last two decades. Rather than share the claim of world’s largest with a few dubious competitors, he contacted Guinness to find out exactly what it would take to make it official. The answer was more complicated than you might think.

Lovitch's competition: the Pepperkakebyen in Norway. (Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

“It’s very intense,” he explains. “They want a sketch and a map of the exhibit that has to match photography. You have to have 10 percent of it be commercial; churches, schools, fire stations, town halls, hotels. Every house has to be six inches in any one direction. You cannot use anything besides gingerbread, icing, and candy, and that’s what trips up people who try to dethrone me, particularly my friends in Norway.” 

That’s how Lovitch refers to the Bergen contingent, who in 2013—the first year that Lovitch officially claimed the title—built a more expansive village than Gingerbread Lane’s 157 structures, but had done so using non-edible elements like hot glue and styrofoam. That might explain why Bergen currently has an application in with Guinness, but, according to the record-keepers, hasn’t provided the necessary evidence to support its claim.

Regardless, to “silence critics,” in Lovitch’s words, in 2014 he beat his previous record by nearly 900 houses. The most recent iteration of Gingerbread Lane has 1,003 buildings spanning 484 square feet, and comprises about 3,100 pounds of icing, 600 pounds of gingerbread dough, and 700 pounds of candy. The combined weight is slightly more than your average hippopotamus.  

It should be noted here that Lovitch has a day job, as executive chef at New York’s Algonquin Hotel. It’s an important detail, because building the world’s largest gingerbread village by yourself takes time. Specifically, it takes nearly a full year of working well over 20 hours per week. Lovitch presently has no sponsorship deals in place, and takes no fee from the New York Hall of Science when the Queens museum displays his creations during the holidays every year. A gingerbread village wouldn’t make for much of a roadside attraction, and even if it did, Jon Lovitch is a man, not a municipality. So… what’s in it for him?

Notoriety, for starters. Lovitch acknowledges that his appearances in USA Today and on the Today Show have driven some traffic to the Algonquin, besides which there's something fun about a little bit of fame. But most of all, Lovitch sounds like the type of person who's fortunate enough to have an obsession that aligns neatly with a public good, and thoughtful enough to act on it.

Another view on Lovitch's creation from 2014. (Photo: Courtesy Jon Lovitch.)

“At the Hall of Science the last few years in New York City, I just get thousands on thousands of people that want to come see [Gingerbread Lane]. They stand there in awe, they love it, they think it’s the most amazing thing they’ve ever seen. And that’s the motivating factor,” he says.

“That’s the only way I know of that I can reach people.”

Which isn’t to say that Gingerbread Lane will always be a loss leader; there’s money in being the world’s largest if you know where to look for it. During his early building days in the ‘90s Lovitch had sponsorship deals from big-name confectioners like Hershey, Pillsbury, Brach’s, M&Ms, and Hammond’s; instead of bleeding cash into gingerbread condos, he came out a couple thousand dollars ahead at the end of the year. And that was before he—or anyone else—had a world record to boast.

 One particularly rigorous IRS audit—they plowed through 380 receipts in search of one $20 donation—turned turned Lovitch off to the sponsorship route, but he’s started to consider it again. He also says he’s been inundated with offers from casinos, amusement parks, and other deep-pocketed venues over the last decade or so. “If that side of it takes off, then maybe it’s something that becomes a vocation,” Lovitch says.

If someone can make a healthy living being the 32nd best starting quarterback in the United States, or the 125th best golfer, surely the creator of the world's largest confection-based city can too. At least, that's the dream.

For now, though, Lovitch is already three and a half months deep into planning and constructing Gingerbread Lane 2015. He’s intentionally vague on specifics, not wanting to tip his hand, but he does say it will be at least as big as last year’s creation. Pepperkakebyen is coming, and Jon Lovitch will be ready for it.

A tinku festival in Macha, Bolivia. (Photo by Arnd Zschocke via Flickr)

Each year in early May, the hills and towns of Bolivia erupt with violent fighting. The weapons are fists and stones. People die. And after a few days, everything goes back to normal. 

This is tinku.

There may be no tourist attraction in the world quite like tinku, the ritual street battles practiced by some indigenous communities in the Bolivian Andes. Visitors return with reports of chaos and brutal warfare, fueled by homemade booze, in remote mountain villages. 

Tinku, which means something like “violent encounter” in Aymara, is the most notorious element of certain festivals celebrated by two native groups in the Andes, specifically the Aymara and the Quechua.  In addition to the brawling, the festivals also include feasts, elaborate dances and huge, choreographed musical events. Some of the biggest are held in the towns of Macha and Potosi.

There are generally only one or two of these festivals per group each year, according to Henry Stobart, an ethnomusicologist who has lived with and studied the festivals, which means they really have to count. “I don’t think they are a violent people,” Stobart says of those who partake in the tinku sparring, “but unlike most groups they seem to have an outlet for it.”

Traditional tinku costumes. (Photo by Antonio Ponte via Flickr)

Tinku is a heavily ritualized form of battle, but the skirmishes aren’t supposed to be personal. Traditionally, the fighting may have been meant to honor Pachamama, a Bolivian goddess, but these days it’s more like a sport than anything else, a way to prove one’s bravery. Village against village, villager against villager. Where once there was peace, suddenly there is war, and just as suddenly, that war will end.

The teams, such as they are, tend to be made up of ayllus, originally extended family units that have over the years become small, tight-knit communities. The fights are pre-arranged; you don’t just go in swinging, like a mosh pit. And the attire and methods of fighting are formalized as well. Many wear colorful costumes, and sometimes a traditional sort of helmet. Fighting is at first done only with fists, and later supplemented with weapons like rocks.

Theoretically, there are rules to prevent people from getting injured too badly. “Police and community authorities are usually at hand to stop the fighting if one person has fallen to the ground,” says Stobart, though once the stone-throwing starts, all bets are off. Deaths during tinku are not unusual. “Sometimes underlying conflicts between groups can also surface and the fighting can get ugly and carry on after an opponent has fallen to the ground,” Stobart explains.

A tinku festival in Macha, Bolivia. (Photo by Arnd Zschocke via Flickr)

Usual depictions of tinku are wrapped up in themes of drunkenness and poverty, and indeed beverages like chicha, a sort of cousin of beer, are certainly a major part of the festivals. But Stobart was extremely insistent that tinku is not indicative of the rest of the year--in fact, it might be so unlike the normal lives of festival participants that it serves as a way to avoid drunkenness and violence in general. “People work incredibly hard and relatively few days each year are dedicated to festive activities with drinking and music,” says Stobart. 

From a macro perspective it seems, in some ways, to spring from a similar need as American high school football rivalries. “Frankly, I don’t enjoy tinku itself at all,” says Stobart, who has witnessed a number of the events. The government of Bolivia has a more nuanced and complex view of things; they try, with varying degrees of success, to limit the mayhem, but also recognize that tinku is a legitimate tourist attraction, Bolivia’s running of the bulls. For the people who participate, though, it’s a necessary explosion of energy, a way to vent and avoid existing in a state of anger for the entire year. They might be onto something.

Blood on the ground after a tinku brawl. (Photo by Arnd Zschocke via Flickr)

Warming up for a tinku rivalry in Macha, Bolivia. (Photo by Arnd Zschocke via Flickr)

Smuggler's Cove (Photo: Ghost of Kuji on Flickr)

Obviously, shipwrecks represent a tragedy, the loss of life or property or both. But shipwrecks can also be dazzlingly beautiful, adding character and history to otherwise unbroken natural vistas. As far as discarded junk goes, you really can't beat the ruins of ships for pure atmosphere. All across the world, the rotting remains of boats that were forgotten due to accident or obsolescence still sit like glimpse into our own future downfall. Check out seven of the most beautiful shipwrecks in the world.     

1. KIPTOPEKE'S CONCRETE FLEET
Cape Charles, Virginia

Boats made of stone. Great idea, guys. (Photo: Matt Flowers on Atlas Obscura)

The only remaining brethren to the S.S. Selma above, the nine ships that make up the Kiptopeke Breakwater, are the remainder of the 12 concrete vessels commissioned by Woodrow Wilson in 1918. The president actually commissioned 24 of the boats, but only 12 were ever made. In 1948, the nine ships were hauled to Kiptopeke Beach and scuttled to provide storm protection to what was, at the time, the Chesapeake Ferry Terminal. The ferry is no more, but the sturdy concrete ships remain. Many of them have deteriorated with age, showing the strands of rebar holding the things together. More than any of the metal ships on this list, the cement fleet in Kiptopeke Bay resemble sunken temples.   

That's not the dock, that's the boat. (Photo: Matt Flowers on Atlas Obscura)

2. BAY OF NOUADHIBOU SHIP GRAVEYARD
Nouadhibou, Mauritania

I'm not sure that ship still needs to have an anchor out. (Photo: jbdodane on Flickr)

Shipbreaking is hard and expensive work, so in places where the laws are... malleable regarding the practice, sometimes boats are simply scuttled and illegally left for dead. Such is the case in Mauritania's Bay of Nouadhibou which stands as the world's largest ship graveyard. Once unscrupulous captains found that they could simply abandon their unwanted vessels in the bay for a small bribe, it started filling up with the rusting hulks of dead ships, and continues to collect them to this day. Despite concerns regarding the rust, paint, and chemicals that may be leaking into the waters of the bay, the deteriorating ships have come to provide habitats for a great deal of undersea life.  

A ruin of shipwrecks. (Photo: Niko on Flickr)

3. S.S. SELMA
Galveston, Texas

This old boat looks like it's been crying. (Photo: OneEighteen on Flickr)

For a short time during World War I, America decided to start making ships out of concrete to save on steel. Only a few of the vessels were ever created, and even fewer remain, but one outstanding example is the S.S. Selma off the coast of Texas' Galveston Island. The ship was abandoned in the sea after it was fatally wounded by a collision with a jetty. However this was not the end of the story for the old boat. During Prohibition, anti-booze authorities would take caches of confiscated hooch out to the wreck and destroy them where there would be no hope for recovery. I'm sure they didn't drink any of it while they were out there.  

4. NAVAGIO BEACH
Zakynthos, Greece

That little boat is jealous. (Photo: Heather Cowper on Flickr)

As though a secluded cove beach on a tiny Greek island were not magical enough, Zakynthos Island's Navagio Beach also holds the rusting wreckage of a smuggler's ship. In 1983 the ship known as the Panagiotis was carrying contraband loads of cigarettes, booze, and according to some reports, humans. The authorities caught wind of the illicit cargo and tracked down the ship while it was still at sea. The Panagiotis fled, but the weather was poor and in their haste, they ran the ship aground into what is now sometimes called, "Smuggler's Cove." Today the wreck is still there, the only mar on the otherwise pristine beach. Although surprisingly it makes it all the more attractive. 

SECRET SHIPWRECK BEACH PARTY! (Photo: Alistair Ford on Flickr)

5. ÖZLEM SHIPWRECK
Batumi, Georgia

This ship looks like it's saying, "Ugh! My back!" (Photo: Richard Bartz on Wikipedia)

The poor, broken Özlem. Turkish for "Desire," this little blue ship looks like the only thing it desires is to not be broken in half. After running aground right where in the very spot it sits to this day, the ship was simply abandoned. It has since broken completely in half as it rusts away into the gently waters surrounding it. It seems like a peaceful way to go. 

6. S.S. AYERFIELD
Homebush, Australia

Most beautiful shipwreck in the world? (Photo: Jason Baker on Wikipedia)

While most shipwrecks are beautiful just the way they are, the S.S. Ayerfield in Australia's Homebush Bay does them one better with a small forest of mangrove trees growing in its corpse. Homebush Bay was once a thriving commercial port with large freighters regularly moving in and out. But after being contaminated by toxic waste, the port shut down and was remade as a residential area. When the trade ceased a number of ships were simply left in the bay to die. One of which was the S.S. Ayerfield, which today has been boarded by a lush mangrove thicket. Hanging down every side like it's nature's drunken party boat, the wild branches make the industrial husk look like a truly singular ruin.   

Is there such a thing as a maritime gardener? (Photo: Jason Baker on Flickr)

7. WRECK OF THE SUB MARINE EXPLORER
San Telmo, Panama

Barnacle'd. (Photo: James Delgado on Wikipedia)

The only submarine on the list, this rotting iron coffin stands as the remains of the first submarine capable of rising and diving without help from the surface. Built in 1866 by a German inventor, the ship was a marvel in its day, using an innovative ballast system that would sink or raise the ship at will. Unfortunately, the brave sailors that experimented with the ship during its trial run began coming down with an unexplained "fever," that we now know to have been decompression sickness, or "the bends." Even the ships creator died of the so-called fever. Eventually the ship slipped out of memory until the wreck was rediscovered in 2001.    

A low tide beauty. (Photo: James P. Delgado) 

The counting of steps, the smell of gunpowder, the sound of clashing swords. This is the duel; gentleman’s right, settler of disputes, restorer of honor, a really easy way to get yourself killed. Duels took many forms over the years, including some very unusual conflicts. In the second installment of a four-part animated video series,  we recount history's most unusual duels along with the lessons learned.

During this period New Orleans was home to more duels than any city in America. A duel was fought almost daily at the dueling grounds (now part of City Park) under a set of large oak trees. In 1839 one busy Saturday saw ten duels fought back to back on the spot, and while the duels didn't always lead to death, the old trees soaked up plenty of spilled blood. While the duelers are all long dead, by pistol or by time, the "dueling oak" still stand. 

Lesson learned: Pick the right weapons.

Oh, just the public library. (Photo: Richard Hopkins on Wikipedia)

Austria's capital city of Vienna is an urban melting pot of historic architecture and cosmopolitan living. The so-called "City of Music" sees millions of visitors arrive each year to take in the city's sites, but there are a number of hidden wonders scattered throughout Vienna that most tourists never find out about. From relics of the grandiose Habsburgs to museums of undertaking and Esperanto, Vienna holds a treasure trove of curious locations that have to be seen to be believed. Take a look at the Atlas Obscura Guide to the Hidden Wonders of Vienna.

1. THE IMPERIAL CRYPT

That crown seems wasted on a skeleton. (Photo: Erwin Kugler on Wikipedia)

Sitting beneath Vienna's Capuchin Church, the Habsburg Imperial Crypt holds the remains (including hearts in a separate room) of 143 members of the royal family. Befitting the baroque stylings associated with the Habsburgs, the burial crypt is an elaborate collection of metal sarcophagi holding the bodies of emperors, empresses, and others of royal blood. The coffins are decorated with ornate skulls, lions, and filigree that not only honor the dead, but are likely to make the living jealous. The hearts and entrails of the deceased were often placed in separate urns, which were in turn held in adjoining tombs. Rarely has death looked so beautiful. 

Welcome to the coffin show. (Photo: Skare Media on Atlas Obscura)

2. AUSTRIAN NATIONAL LIBRARY

Hogwarts? (Photo: Oke on Wikipedia)

Coffins weren't the only thing the Habsburgs did in style. What is now the Austrian National Library was once the historic book collection of the Habsburg monarchy, and it shows. The grand space is filled with columns, busts, and fine woodworking detail, rivaled by few other other libraries in the world. The collection today contains more than two million books. In addition to the collection of books, the library also incorporates a couple of other collections that are wonders in their own right.  

Who says print is dead? (Says the internet writer.) (Photo: joiseyshowaa on Wikipedia)

3. THE GLOBE MUSEUM

Where in the world is the Globe Museum? Vienna. That's where. (Photo: AtlasObscura.com)

One of the unique collections held under the umbrella of the Austrian National Library (but in a different space) is the Globe Museum, which is the only museum in the world singularly devoted to globes. Including globes both terrestrial and celestial (in the heyday of globular maps, they often came in pairs) the collection holds more than 600 specimens, with 200 or so on display at any given time. There are inflatable fabric globes, tiny handheld globes, and giant globes as large as a person. Surprisingly, its easy to get lost among this gorgeous collection.      

Where in the word did they find so many globes? (Photo: AtlasObscura.com)

4. ESPERANTO MUSEUM

 
Um, is it Mountain Dew? (Photo: CuriousExpeditions.org)

The second notable collection overseen by the Austrian National Library is the Department of Planned Languages and Esperanto Museum, or the Esperanto Museum for short. This unique collection collects artifacts related to the constructed language that was developed in the 1880s as a possible universal tongue. While it never really caught on in the way its inventor would have liked, it remains  the most successful created language in history. The collection holds such oddities as soda cans written in Esperanto as well as thousands of books, pamphlets, and pieces of ephemera related to the language. Other constructed languages are also represented.    

The smooth, cool flavor of a planned language. (Photo: CuriousExpeditions.org)

5. VIENNA UNDERTAKER'S MUSEUM

The re-usable coffin, a good idea ahead of its time. (Photo: Ekehnel on Wikipedia)

Now located in the second largest cemetery in Europe, the Undertaker's Museum in Vienna displays a wide variety of funereal oddities such as a reusable coffin, a collection of elaborate pallbearing attire, and even a pack cigarettes for undertakers with the slogan, "Smoking Protects Jobs..." With well over a 1,000 items in its collection, the museum should leave visitors more curious about the business of death than they ever thought possible.

6. GASOMETER TOWN

Giant gas tanks, perfect homes. (Photo: Andreas Poeschek on Wikipedia)

These four circular buildings were built to house massive amounts of depressurizing gas. As gas power technology evolved, the big round silos became obsolete, and were shut down in 1984. Rather than demolish the quartet of beautiful buildings, Vienna gutted them, leaving only the brick exteriors, and turned them into housing communities. In addition to the living spaces, there are offices, and retail locations. The gas houses continue to be used as housing to this day, and have developed a surprising sense of community.  

Not too shabby for a giant gas silo. (Photo: Andreas Poeschek on Wikipedia)

7. THE NARRENTURM

  This tower for the insane was thought to look like a cake. (Photo: Gryffindor on Wikipedia)

Translating to "The Fool's Tower," this is another circular structure that has found a second life. Built in 1784, The Narrenturm began life as mainland Europe's first mental hospital, established to provide a (comparatively) better life for those suffering from mental illness. The "Poundcake" as it was nicknamed was already obsolete by the 1790s and came to house a museum that is today known as the Electro-Pathological Museum. The museum still displays alarming specimens such as disfigured fetuses and taxidermied monkeys.   

Just the view of the sky a schizophrenic needs. (Photo: Guenter09 on Wikipedia)

8. KRIMINALMUSEUM

Best tattoo ever? (Photo: CuriousExpeditions.org)

This museum of crime and punishment displays relics and artifacts about the morbid history of bad deeds. Exhibits cover the history of gruesome crimes and their equally gruesome punishments, dating back as far as the Middle Ages. The collection includes graphic illustrations of bloody offenses, skulls of both murderers and their victims, and even the weapons they used. However there are also displays covering brothels, counterfeiting, and lock-picking. It may not be for the faint of heart, but the Kriminalmuseum is certainly unforgettable.    

Crime doesn't pay. Unless your local currency is chains. (Photo: CuriousExpeditions.org)

9. REPUBLIC OF KUGELMUGEL 

Oh hai, micronation! (Photo: MOs810 on Wikpedia)

When artist Edwin Lipburger set out to create a spherical house in central Austria, the city authorities were less than pleased. So in 1984 Lipburger decided that he would simply make his house its own country, beyond their control, calling this sovereign nation the "Republic of Kugelmugel." Of course the authorities did not take kindly to this, and Lipburger was jailed for making his own stamps. The Republic won out in the end, as public outcry to save the project reached the ears of the President of Austria, who pardoned Lipburger and saved the spherical building. Today it sits in the Vienna Prater surrounded by a barbed-wire fence. 

James and the Giant Peach, this is not. (Photo: Priwo on Wikipedia)

10. WEHRMANN IN EISEN

Nailed it. (Photo: Gryffindor on Wikipedia)

While it depicts a suit of medieval armor, this monument was actually created in World War I. The "Iron Soldier" standing outside of the Vienna town hall was created in 1914 as a fundraising effort to support the fighting men of WWI. Beginning with simply a wooden base, the entire figure was created by citizens who would give a donation in exchange for the right to hammer in a nail. The larger the donation, the larger and better located the nail. This charitable spectacle inspired a trend of "nail men" all over Austria, Germany, and places farther afield. The original still stands proud in its Vienna home.    

A suit made of nails is a pretty impressive monument, but can't be that comfortable. (Photo: Gryffindor on Wikipedia)

11. STOCK IM EISEN NAIL TREE

Looks like a good luck totem to me! (Photo: Drecksau on Wikipedia)

This ancient dead tree may be covered in nails, but unlike the knight above, it actually does date back to the Middle Ages. Currently resting behind glass by the Palais Equitable at the corner of the Graben and Karntner Strasse in Vienna, the ancient nail tree is a relic from a time when nails were a valuable commodity. As was custom in parts of medieval Europe, people would drive nails into the tree as a sacrifice for good luck. Today the tree that is on display in Vienna, which has been identified as a spruce likely dating back to the 15th century, is protected from such offerings. It's possible that the tradition of nail trees inspired the creation of such monuments as the knight above.     

Today the oak and iron sit behind glass. (Photo: Panoramafotos.net on Wikipedia)

This post is sponsored by Austrian Airlines. Start your Viennese adventure today by booking your trip at Austrian.com and fuel up for adventure with the 14 coffee options offered on each flight.

Portrait of Edgar Allan Poe, painted from a daguerreotype after his death by Oscar Halling in 1868. 

Nearly 30 years ago, a woman from Tennessee was clearing out her grandfather’s Baltimore house in order to sell it. She stumbled on a box containing two photographs. One was of Edgar Allan Poe, and the other was of the famous author’s estranged sister, Rosalie Mackenzie, who shared a striking physical resemblance to her brother.

She got in touch with Jeffrey Savoye, who runs the Edgar Allan Poe Society of Baltimore, to see if he was interested in the find. He certainly was. Savoye maintains what is quite likely the Internet’s greatest repository of information on Poe. “I may have bought the whole lot for $35, sight unseen,” he recalls.

But the woman's find was not just the photograph. On the back of the picture of Poe–a copy of a well-known Oscar Halling portrait—there was a scrawled note and approximately twelve strands of chestnut brown hair about two inches in length. The locks are held to the photo not by wax, but by an animal-based glue that Savoye suspects is made of rabbit skin. 

The hair, improbably enough, turned out to be a lock taken directly from the head of Edgar Allan Poe, celebrated poet, mystery writer, and literary critic. It turns out that this Poe lock was hardly a one-of-a-kind relic—there are purported to be at least a dozen of them in collections across the country. There is no central repository, no tracking mechanism for this odd bit of history. Only a motley collection of interested parties, all of whom must have looked at stray bits of brown hair and wondered, could this really belong to Edgar Allan Poe?

The story of the hair begins on October 8, 1849, at a pre-funeral viewing for the author of The Raven, and The Tell-Tale Heart in Henry Herring’s Fell’s Point, Baltimore home. In attendance were eight people, including his cousins Neilson Poe and Elizabeth Rebecca Herring, and an acquaintance, the doctor Joseph Evans Snodgrass. Poe had passed away the day before.  

During the morose event, Ms. Herring did something that was all the rage at the time: she took clippings of the dead man’s hair, most likely from the back of his head, an area obscured by the pillow.

Poe’s hair, once “dark, hyacinthine” but now brown and thinning, was an attraction in life and, now, in death. “His remains were visited by some of the first individuals of the City, many of them anxious to have a lock,” reported Poe’s attending physician. And so Herring (and perhaps others) obliged them, distributing the famous locks to various guests. 

 
The hair found attached to a photograph in a Baltimore home. (Courtesy of Jeffrey A. Savoye)

The custom seems strange now, but it was once fairly common in the U.S. and Europe.“Throughout the nineteenth century, locks of hair were used both as memento mori to commemorate the dead and as symbols of affection for the living,” notes historian Eva Giloi, with even royalty engaging in the practice. Paul Koudounaris, author of Heavenly Bodies, says preservation of the hair is not a reminder of death, but “the creation of a personal relic.”

Originally, said Koudounaris, a relic had been “the part or possession of a person who died in a blessed state and can act as an intercessor for God.” But by the 19th century, he said, “the idea of having a relic—this personal keepsake—with quasi-magical power had spilled over into the secular world, with the desire to just keep a piece of the person around, as a touching reminder, devoid of the original sacred connotations of what a relic was.”

The custom of saving posthumous clippings was widespread, and transcended class. There was even a precedent for it within the literary world. In 1817, Jane Austen’s sister Cassandra cut off several locks of the Pride and Prejudice author’s light brown hair as she lay in her coffin. She intended to keep them as mementos.

In Poe’s case, his hair was even given as a gift during his lifetime. In 1846, a fan requested the writer’s autograph, but he decided to offer her some of his hair instead. “I guess I do want a lock of Mr. Poe’s hair!” she replied, “but I also want a line of his writing.” (There’s no record how Poe’s hair was clipped, but scissors were the likely implement of removal. In The Murders in the Rue Morgue, Poe wrote of the “great force necessary in tearing thus from the head even twenty or thirty hairs together.”)

The enthusiasm for Poe’s hair has hardly abated among collectors and Poe obsessives. In fact, celebrity hair—despite a considerable ick factor—still seems to be sought after. “Clippings from long-dead celebrities’ hair have emerged widely at auctions in recent years,” observed the New York Times. Indeed, it wasn’t so long ago that Susan Jaffe Tane, owner of the world’s greatest private Poe collection, purchased a lock of the author’s hair—as well as his fiancée’s engagement ring, photographic portraits, and other paraphernalia—for a reported $96,000. Poe’s tresses have also been sold on eBay.

In the 166 years since his death, locks attributed to Poe have turned up in a number of places and collections, private and public. How they got there is a fascinating window into Poe’s circle of friends and family, his acquaintances, and others who simply wanted a piece—an actual remnant!—of the renowned writer. In some cases, the hair can be traced directly back to the wake.

Take, for example, the lock that resides in the Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond, Virginia.James Howard Whitty, editor of The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe and founder of the museum, purchased about a dozen strands at auction. The provenance isn’t definitive--which is true for most of the Poe hair in circulation--but Whitty acquired it no later than 1922, the year it entered the museum’s collection.

The protein filament curio came courtesy of Dr. Joseph Evans Snodgrass, one of the last men to see Poe alive. Snodgrass was summoned by an employee of the Baltimore Sun, who found a delirious Poe in the gutter outside Gunner’s Hall, a local bar and pop-up polling place. Days later, Snodgrass clipped Poe’s hair and, according to the museum, “gave the souvenir to G. W. Magers, in whose handwriting it is authenticated.”

The lock clipped by Dr. Snodgrass. (Photo courtesy of Chris Semtner, Poe Museum)

According to Christopher Semtner, a curator at the Poe Museum, Magers was “a Baltimore publisher active in the 1840s through 1860s. I have found some books published under his name during that time. I have also found some of his poetry online. I also found a letter he wrote to the editor of Scientific American in 1887.”

Snodgress, however, was not the most reliable of sources. His hobbyhorse was temperance (when he gave anaccount of Poe’s death, it was to the Woman’s Temperance Paper) and he happily attributed Poe’s early demise at 40 to alcoholism, claiming he’d smelled booze on the dying man’s breath.This wasn’t true. “Samples of Poe's hair from after his death show low levels of lead,” reportedThe Smithsonian last year, “which is an indication that Poe remained faithful to his vow of sobriety up until his demise.”

In any case, there is little about these events of which one can be certain. The authenticating letter, written by Magers—based on the account of Snodgrass—should be viewed with skepticism. “People keep embellishing their account, as time goes on,” says Semtner.

Snodgrass would’ve given the hair to Magers no later than 1880; the good doctor died that May.

Later, the hair clipped in Baltimore in the mid-18^th century ended up in the possession of George Smith, a major rare book dealer in New York. The founder of the Poe Museum in Virginia likely purchased it sometime during the first quarter of the 19^th century. 

What, exactly, gave rise to the posthumous hair clipping trend? One factor, says Colin Dickey, author of Cranioklepty: Grave Robbing and the Search for Genius, was the change in attitude regarding the treatment of corpses. Whereas it had once been acceptable to keep the dead in the home for long periods, by the early 1800s, medical authorities realized this was deeply unsanitary and led to the spread of diseases. 

Instead of burying family members in the backyard, where they could be visited—as was customary—people were now required to bury bodies in cemeteries well outside the city. These policies meant that people could no longer lay out the dead on their living room table. A new way for memorializing the dead had to be embraced.

People saved hair prior to the 19^th century, but the interest in sanitation—and the attendant lack of accessibility to the body—gave the practice a new urgency. As it happens, the period of Poe’s fame coincides with the peak of hair clippings used as relics. It would not fade away until the end of the century, as a result of another cultural shift, to a less ostentatious culture of mourning. By the 20th century, there were other ways to commemorate people, including photography. “The physical remains,” says Dickey, “became less important.”

Yet for his relative Mary Herring, Poe’s hair was of paramount importance.The lock she gave to her daughter, Ella Warden, has been housed in the Baltimore’s Enoch Pratt Free Library since the mid-1930s. A letter from Ms. Warden to “Miss Evans” of the Poe Society, dated November 11, 1936, notes a gift of two “trinkets,” along with some other personal items, including a smelling salts bottle. In her missive, Warden stressed that the thick locks were cut by her mother as Poe’s “body was lying in his coffin in my Grandfather Herring’s house, from which Poe was buried, and not from the hospital, as is commonly believed.” 

They belonged to Virginia Clemm, Poe’s wife and, also famously, his cousin. She in turn gave them to Mrs. James Warden (née Mary Herring), who thought the tresses would be safer in the library, and signed off on a long-term loan. The Pratt Library now keeps the hair in a secure vault. It’s a seasonally popular item, attracting visitors in the fall and around Poe’s birthday, in January.

The 79-year-old Ella Warden letter gives the Pratt’s lock a fairly strong provenance—a paper trail, more or less, so a buyer understands how an item came to be in the possession of a seller. Sometimes, in lieu of a physical document, other modes of authentication are required.

John Reznikoff, who identifies himself as “a treasure hunter,” owns some 150 historic hair relics, including locks from George Washington, John F. Kennedy, and Napoleon. “I just found a terrific lock of Jimi Hendrix hair,” he says.

Reznikoff’s piece of Poe hair, which came in a gold locket, was purchased in 2008 from a dealer, via a Chicago insurance agent—he declined to name him—who had bought a toolbox for $150 from a maintenance man in his office. “Upon purchasing the toolbox and bringing it home,” wrote the agent to the dealer, “I found within a small plastic box … along with a very brown and brittle piece of paper with a printed paragraph or two referencing the item. The paper literally crumbled in my hands.”

The locket containing strands of Poe's hair. (Photo courtesy of Katharine Chandler, Philadelphia Free Library)

Inside the locket is written:

Edgar A. Poe
Born Jan 19th 1811
Died Oct 7th 1849

This is in error. Edgar was born in 1809. He often claimed to be a couple of years younger than he really was, to appear more precocious.

The other side of the locket is inscribed with:

Virginia E. Poe
Born Aug 13th 1822
Died Jan 30th 1847

This, too, is in error. Virginia was born on August 15th.

Reznikoff doesn’t doubt its authenticity. He points out the engraving is consistent with the period, and the hair is the right shade. “This was purchased very innocently, and not for a lot of money,” he says. “And you know what these things are worth.” He puts the value of the locket and hair at $500,000. 

The number of Poe locks in private collections is very small, and the few collectors are certainly aware of each other.“I have the motherlode,” Susan Jaffe Tane declares, and it’s largely in her apartment in the Upper East Side of Manhattan. Much of her Poe memorabilia is kept in a custom-made paisley box about the size of a dictionary. The hair is in a small folder in a plastic pouch, bound with ribbon into marbled board.

The authenticating document is an undated letter from the granddaughter of Elizabeth Herring. Tane purchased the family letters, the hair, an engagement ring, a silver spoon, and photographs of Poe and his relatives in December 2012 for a rumored $96,000. “I’d already had a piece of his coffin, so I knew the hair was out there,” she said. “But it’s not the sort of thing that you’re interested in until it falls in your lap.”

The other items hold more appeal for her. “There’s nothing about the hair that I like,” she admits. “It’s just another piece of the physical entity.” She has exhibited them, however, since “unless someone’s got his teeth,” the locks are very likely all that’s left of the author’s corporal body.

Is there a line she wouldn’t cross? Would she buy Poe’s teeth, for instance? “I’m not sure I would draw the line,” she says. Asked if there is a Poe-related acquisition she might consider distasteful, she answers, “I would’ve said the coffin, but I bought it for an exhibition.”

Generally speaking, nailing down the source of hair is problematic. For one, it’s “too easily faked. You can cut off a piece of hair and say it’s so and so’s. And who’s to say not?” says New York Public Library curator Isaac Gewirtz. “I would never purchase hair. It has no research value,” he says. “One doesn’t learn anything about the author of a lock of hair.”

So is all this hair really from Edgar Allen Poe's head? Hard to say. DNA testing is possible for historic hair, but it’s unlikely to be done well in the case of Poe, given the age of the hair and probable level of contamination. Testing is also limited because hair that is clipped—as opposed to yanked—doesn’t contain nuclear DNA, which resides in the root. Lastly, Poe had no children, so there are no direct descendants who might give comparative hair samples.  (Realistically, it’s probably not in the interest of the owners to scientifically authenticate the hair; the procedure is expensive and, given the acceptable, relatively loose standard of provenance, there’s no real upside.) Occasionally, however, celebrated old hair gets put under the microscope. Back in the 1990s, Beethoven’s locks were analyzed to determine his cause of death.

On a brighter note: not all of Poe’s hair was removed posthumously. A lock in the collection of the University of Indiana’s Lilly Library is one of the few we know for certain was not taken at the wake. It was acquired by the pharmaceutical industrialist Josiah Kirby Lilly, Jr., for whom, says librarian Rebecca Baumann, Poe was an “early collecting obsession.”

Poe's dramatic letter to his one-time fiancee, Sarah Helen Whitman. (Courtesy of Rebecca Baumann, University of Indiana Lilly Library)

One chestnut-colored curl in Indiana, purchased from Max Harzof, a famed New York bookseller, was found in a black tin box of letters that Poe wrote to his one-time fiancee Sarah Helen Whitman. Upon the envelope was written: Mrs. Sarah Helen Whitman / Providence / RI / Sent to me on the evening / of Nov 8^th 1848. 

“Sarah Helen Whitman, a sort of 19^th-century version of the modern 'Goth' girl, was known for wearing black clothes and a coffin-shaped charm, holding séances at her house, and writing transcendentalist poetry,” Baumann emailed. “She was briefly engaged to Poe until she received an anonymous note at the library claiming that he had returned to drink (which he had sworn off of as a condition of their engagement).”

Their courtship, wrote author David Randall, was “brief and violent … during which both parties were often alternately or jointly hysterical.” In a letter dated November 7, Poe wrote to his beloved: “If you cannot see me—write me one word to say that you do love me and that, under all circumstances, you will be mine. Remember that these coveted words you have never yet spoken—and, nevertheless, I have not reproached you.”

There’s a second lock in the Lilly collection, this one sent in 1849 to Annie Richmond, a friend of Poe’s, by Maria Clemm (mother of Virginia). The hair is encased in a pearl-ringed brooch, which maybe from the writer’s deathbed. “That is certainly the library lore of the item, but I was unable to find anything to conclusively establish this,” says Baumann. “The date is right, and it certainly fits in with the custom of funeral jewelry, but I haven't been able to confirm.”

The sheer quantity of Poe hair dispersed across the country is remarkable. No less than four libraries along the Eastern seaboard have their own caches: In addition to the collection in Baltimore, the New York Public Library has a lock of his hair, acquired in 1938, while the Philadelphia Free Library is home to a strange miniature of Poe, painted on ivory, that also contains some of his prized hair. Given this fact, one wonders how much hair still remained when Edgar Allan Poe was buried.

Poe was initially entombed in an unmarked grave in a Baltimore cemetery. It was neglected terribly. A decade after Poe’s death, Maria Clemm wrote to Neilson Poe, “A lady called on me a short time ago from Baltimore. She said she had visited my darling Eddie’s grave. She said it was in the basement of the church, covered with rubbish and coal. Is this true?”

By 1875, however, the author’s reputation had been resuscitated and burnished, and Poe’s body was exhumed and reburied in a more tourist-friendly part of the cemetery. A reporter for the Baltimore American was there when the coffin was first re-opened, where it was inspected by a small gaggle of curious onlookers. According to him, the skeleton was “almost in perfect condition, and lying with the long bony hands reposing one upon the other,” while the skull had “some little hair...still clinging near the forehead.”

There's something poignant about it. Even as the rest of Poe's body had fallen away—neither carefully cut up like the old man in The Tell-Tale Heart nor encased in a catacomb like the nobleman in The Cask of Amontillado—his remaining locks had hung on.

A pearl-ringed brooch with Poe's hair inside, perhaps from the author's deathbed.  (Courtesy of Rebecca Baumann, University of Indiana Lilly Library)

 Alexandra David-Néel, in Tibet 1933. (CC BY 2.0, Preus Museum)

This is the second part of a five-part series about early female explorers. The first part can be found here.

The first western woman to gain an audience with the Dalai Lama, the Belgian-French Buddhist scholar Alexandra David-Néel is best known for her forbidden journey to Lhasa, when, aged 55, she ascended the Tibetan steppes on a trek that saw her so malnourished she had to eat the leather from her boots to stay alive.

From the age of two, David-Néel was wandering away from her parents in the streets of Paris, where she was born in 1868. Aged 18, she cycled solo from Brussels to Spain without telling her family. This was 1886 — a time when the roads were dirt and women were expected to be accompanied for even the simplest excursions. 

And that was just the beginning.

 David-Néel as a young woman, in 1866. (Public domain)

Having blown her inheritance on a trip to India and Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) while a student of eastern religions at the Sorbonne, in her twenties David-Néel traveled across Asia and North Africa as prima donna with the Hanoi Opera Company. When her voice began to falter, rather than be mediocre, she left to become the director of the Tunis Casino. It was here that she met and wed, at age 36, the wealthy railroad executive Philip ‘Mouchy’ Néel. 

Falling in love didn’t stop her. In 1911 she went back to India, and later became the disciple of a Buddhist monk, the Gomchen of Lachen, living and meditating in a Sikkim cave on the border with Tibet for three solid years — a controversial move indeed.

“The earth is the inheritance of man, and consequently any honest traveler has the right to walk as he chooses, all over that globe which is his,” she wrote in My Journey to Lhasa in 1927.

 Tibet, 1937. (Bundesarchiv Bild, CC-BY-SA 3.0)

While it was acceptable, even fashionable, to study comparative religion from a distance, to actively don the orange robes, particularly as a woman, was scandalous at the time when the only acceptable costume for European women in the Orient was a long-sleeved white dress, white gloves, broad-brimmed hat, and — of course — a lacy parasol.  But David-Néel didn’t possess the sense of cultural or national superiority that such an outfit conveyed. She traveled to listen and learn. 

David-Néel had promised Mouchy that she wouldn’t be gone for too long, but she had already been in India for years by the time British forces expelled her in 1916, for “trespassing” into Tibet, which was forbidden. It was the height of WWI and she was unable to return to Europe, or Tunis. Instead she went further east, studying at the monasteries of Korea and Japan with the 15 year-old Aphur Yongden, a perceptive Sikkimese lama who would become her lifelong companion and adopted son. 

Yongden, Tibet, 1933. (Elizabeth Meyer, CC-BY-2.0)

Finding Japan too tame for their tastes, David-Néel and Yongden took the dangerous journey east to west across the Chinese empire, covering 5,000 miles by mule, yak, horse, and foot while the country was collapsing into civil war. 

They saw murders and battles, had to barter for passage with warlords and despots, and, on reaching the border with Tibet in the winter of 1923, it was time for their most challenging journey of all: Disguised as Tibetan pilgrims, the two of them set out for Lhasa while the country was still off-limits to foreigners. Each morning, David-Néel dyed her reddish brown hair with Chinese ink, weaving in a scrubby yak’s tail for added effect.

A middle-aged “little round ball," David-Néel ventured where no European had gone before, trekking through the rumored “cannibal country” of the Po people and across a frozen 19,000-foot mountain pass in the dead of winter.

That year, the woman who had grown up in luxury in Paris and Brussels savored a Christmas meal of leather boot strips soaked in boiling water. It was all the sustenance she and Yongden had. 

 Potala Palace (Flickr user reurinkjan, CC-BY-2.0)

Four months into their treacherous journey, David-Néel and Yongden arrived in the holy city of Lhasa. On seeing Potala Palace, the winter palace of the Dalai Lama since the 7th century and the highest ancient palace in the world, she wrote that “golden roofs glittered in the blue sky, sparks seeming to spring from their sharp upturned corners, as if the whole castle, the glory of Tibet, had been crowned with flames.”

Remaining disguised, she and Yongden stayed in Lhasa two months, until they were eventually discovered and sent packing by the British. She returned to France in 1928, and published her most famous work, Magic and Mystery in Tibet, that next year. However, she never stopped her study of Tibet. In 1937, David-Néel Yongden traveled through the Soviet Union to reach Tibet, where they stayed for a time in the eastern highlands, and circumambulated the holy mountain of Amnye Machen. 

Alexandra died in 1969 just before her 101th birthday at her home in Digne, Provence. Her ashes were mixed with Yongden’s, and scattered in the Ganges at Varanasi, as was her request. 

Alexandra David-Néel, in Tibet 1933. (CC BY 2.0, Preus Museum)

The counting of steps, the smell of gunpowder, the sound of clashing swords. This is the duel; gentleman’s right, settler of disputes, restorer of honor, a really easy way to get yourself killed. Duels took many forms over the years, including some very unusual conflicts. In the third installment of a four-part animated video series,  we recount history's most unusual duels along with the lessons learned.

Lesson learned: Good aim doesn't equal good judgement. 

From our friends at Jungles in Paris, a website for travel documentaries run by brothers Darrell and Oliver Hartman, comes a new short film on a South African delicacy—the "smiley". Fair warning to viewers: the preparation of the sheep's head can be quite gruesome. (Although lambs necks are commonly cooked in the U.S.—here's a New York Timesrecipe.) As they describe it:

In the township of Langa, in Cape Town, South Africa, a woman lifts a smoldering sheep’s head out of brightly burning flames. The expression on its scorched face is fiendish, with lips curled back into a toothy grin. Preparing this choice piece of livestock anatomy has nothing to do with superstition or scare tactics. It’s a local food item called “smiley,” and it’s roasted whole over an outdoor grill called a braai.

Langa is working-class community, where many of the dwellings are simple dirt-floored shacks. In 1927 the township was one of the areas in Cape Town set aside for black Africans. While today most of the houses have running water and electricity, the end of apartheid has not brought significant increases in income to most of Langa’s residents. The price for smiley is right, however: a whole head sells at a roadside stand for the equivalent of just a few U.S. dollars and provides enough meat to feed a family of five.

Cooks in the township prepare this bizarre-looking victual every day. After lifting the head off the flames, they use a hot piece of rebar – collected from a nearby construction site – to sear the off any remaining hair. The head is then boiled in a pot, removed and scrubbed, and hacked in two with an ax. The brains are discarded, but the ears, eyes, and tongue are not. In fact, many who eat them consider these the tastiest parts.

From our friends at Jungles in Paris, a website for travel documentaries run by brothers Darrell and Oliver Hartman, comes a new short film on a South African delicacy—the "smiley". Fair warning to viewers: the preparation of the sheep's head can be quite gruesome. (Although lambs necks are commonly cooked in the U.S.—here's a New York Timesrecipe.) As they describe it:

In the township of Langa, in Cape Town, South Africa, a woman lifts a smoldering sheep’s head out of brightly burning flames. The expression on its scorched face is fiendish, with lips curled back into a toothy grin. Preparing this choice piece of livestock anatomy has nothing to do with superstition or scare tactics. It’s a local food item called “smiley,” and it’s roasted whole over an outdoor grill called a braai.

Langa is working-class community, where many of the dwellings are simple dirt-floored shacks. In 1927 the township was one of the areas in Cape Town set aside for black Africans. While today most of the houses have running water and electricity, the end of apartheid has not brought significant increases in income to most of Langa’s residents. The price for smiley is right, however: a whole head sells at a roadside stand for the equivalent of just a few U.S. dollars and provides enough meat to feed a family of five.

Cooks in the township prepare this bizarre-looking victual every day. After lifting the head off the flames, they use a hot piece of rebar – collected from a nearby construction site – to sear the off any remaining hair. The head is then boiled in a pot, removed and scrubbed, and hacked in two with an ax. The brains are discarded, but the ears, eyes, and tongue are not. In fact, many who eat them consider these the tastiest parts.

 
Mud volcanoes in Azerbaijan's Gobustan National Park. (Photo by Rita Willaert via Flickr)

Back in 2001, a spectacular volcano erupted in Azerbaijan, shooting flames 50 feet into the air. 

The strange thing was: Azerbaijan is home to exactly zero active volcanoes. 

But what the country does have are mud volcanoes, a funhouse-mirror relative. Mud volcanoes, caused by hot water burbling below the earth’s crust, don’t just sound dramatic: some researchers think they could be the key to understanding humanity’s past.

The size of mud volcanoes varies widely. Most are quite small, only a few feet high, though some can reach over a thousand feet. Mud volcanoes behave differently than typical volcanoes, which erupt when shifting tectonic plates allow magma to rise to the surface from deep within the earth’s crust, and pressure builds as the molten rock tries to find an escape route. 

Although they are sometimes found in fault lines that are also home to regular volcanoes, mud volcanoes flare up when tectonic activity causes hot water deep underground to mix with various gases and sediments; they have nothing to do with magma. 

A bubbling mud volcano in Gobastan National Park. (Photo via Atlas Obscura)

“At a certain depth, where intense gas-generation (mainly methane) takes place due to the decomposition of buried organic matter, the instability of the system becomes yet more pronounced and reaches a critical condition,” says Akper Feyzullayev, professor at the Azerbaijan National Academy of Sciences. 

The amalgam creates a pressure that forces a muddy substance upwards. Mud volcanoes are more prone to seepage than explosion, though after earthquakes they’ve been known to combust, particularly in Azerbaijan. The oil-rich region along the Caspian Sea, which includes Azerbaijan, is a hotbed for mud volcanoes, with over 400, by far the most in the world. 

Some islands in the Caspian Sea were formed by mud volcanoes, in the same way the Hawaiian islands were formed by regular volcanoes. Many of them are home to substantial gas and oil deposits. “There is great interest to mud volcanoes because they have direct relationship with oil and gas fields,” says Feyzullayev. “Mud volcanoes resemble super-deep exploration wells, providing valuable information on the formation and migration of oil and gas.” 

Often, when a mud volcano erupts, gases like methane will burble up with the sediment and ignite when they breach the earth’s surface, causing spectacular flames. The whole region was once referred to as the “Land of Fire,” which Azerbaijan now uses as tourism motto. 

A mud volcano erupting near Baku, Azerbaijan. (Video by Nijat Askerov via Youtube)

Ronnie Gallagher, a researcher who has worked with BP and Abu Dhabi’s national energy company, TAQA, has a deep fascination with mud volcanoes, partly from his work with energy companies, but partly because he thinks they might be the key to some of the most momentous times in human history. Mud volcanoes are comparatively soft, so they can be used to monitor water levels throughout recent history. In fact, research of that sort has been undertaken right here in the U.S., near the Salton Sea in California. Gallagher has been working for years on a theory that the draining of the Black Sea around 10,000 years ago could have led to a huge migration away from the Caucasus, and into the Middle East.

“There is evidence to suggest that the earliest settlers in the Nile Valley—Badarian and Naqada cultures—had their origins in the Caucasus region,” he emails. Yep: he thinks the ancient Egyptians may have been, at least in part, immigrants from the Caucasus. 

Gallagher’s fascination with mud volcanoes isn’t unique; people throughout history have been amazed by the spurts of sediment and fire that erupt seemingly at random from the earth and sea. Feyzullayev listed for me the various terms different countries and peoples have for the mud volcanoes, ranging from blevak (“puker” in the Crimea) to parsu-gel (“foaming lake” in Turkmenistan) to gainarja (“boiling place” in Azerbaijan). Mud baths are part of traditional healing practices in the region, especially in Georgia and Azerbaijan, in a sort of “if the world gives you lemons” use of exploding gas and mud. Some people believe that the flames of the mud volcanoes are connected to the appearance of the Zoroastrian religion in Azerbaijan some 2,000 years ago.

Mud volcanoes are even suspected to exist on Mars. Researchers hold out hope that life, or evidence of past life, on the Red Planet could be found within the gurgling liquid mass of Martian mud volcanoes. 

Mud volcanoes in Gobustan National Park. (Photo by Nick Taylor via Flickr)

Mud volcanoes in Gobustan National Park. (Photo by Y Nakanishi via Flickr)

The counting of steps, the smell of gunpowder, the sound of clashing swords. This is the duel; gentleman’s right, settler of disputes, restorer of honor, a really easy way to get yourself killed. Duels took many forms over the years, including some very unusual conflicts. In the fourth installment of a four-part animated video series,  we recount history's most unusual duels along with the lessons learned.

Lesson learned: Aim carefully.

The smart phone sort of gives away the time period here. (All photos by Eric Grundhauser unless otherwise noted)

What did people in the 15th century do for fun? It was not known as a real “party” era, as France and England continued the bloody Hundred Years War, Joan of Arc was burned at the stake and the Ottoman Empire conquered Constantinople and ended the Roman Empire in a seven-week siege. Oh, and Spain began its inquisition. But one relic of happier times has survived: the world’s oldest completed deck of playing cards.

Known alternately as the Flemish Hunting Deck, the Hofjager Hunting Pack, or the Cloisters Pack (it is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s Cloisters location), the set of cards now recognized as the oldest in the world was originally thought to be just kinda-historic. The oblong cards are made of pressed layers of paper decorated with stenciled and hand-drawn designs, and overlaid with silver and gold. The art on the cards is clearly medieval in origin, but the completeness of the deck, the resemblance to modern card design, and the nearly pristine condition had many appraisers questioning the actual age of the pack.

The Hofjager Hunting Pack (Photo: Metropolitan Museum of Art)

The Met acquired the deck from an Amsterdam antiques dealer in 1983. It was once believed that the cards dated back to the 16th century, but the dealer thought they were even older, and purchased the whole set for a mere $2,800. After investigating the cards in detail (the dress of the Burgundian royal figures painted on the face cards, and a pair of watermarks found elsewhere in the deck), it came out that they were actually created between 1475 and 1480 CE.  

Although now more than 500 years old, the game resembles a contemporary 52-card deck to a surprising degree. It's certainly fun to look at, but we wondered: what would it be like to play a 15th-century card game?

According to playing card scholar David Parlett’s book, A History of Card Games, it was during the early 15th century that mass-produced decks of cards first became a going concern. The main centers of playing card production were in Germany and France, although the trend soon carried across most of Europe.

Unlike the standard decks we know today, with their uniform quartet of 13-card suites, the decks produced in the early 1400s took on variations depending on the regions they came from. Some packs would contain a fifth suite (which may have been a back-up), or the courtly face cards would have an extra rank, but the symbols used in the suites themselves were all over the place. Suitmarks ranged from birds to acorns to cups to helmets to flowers depending on the origin of the deck.

Such is the case with the Cloisters Deck, the theme of which seems to be falconry. The four suites consist of hunting horns, dog collars, hound tethers, and game nooses, which stand in for the modern day hearts, clubs, diamonds, and spades. However beyond these symbolic differences, the deck is remarkably similar to a pack of cards you might see on the tables of Vegas. Each suite still contains 13 cards, and the court cards are all recognizable as the King, Queen, and Jack (or Knave, in the case of the Cloisters Pack). For all intents and purposes, one could still use this deck to play a round of Hold ‘Em.

Of course, poker didn’t exist in the 15th century, so what were people doing with these cards? Given the pristine nature of the Cloisters Deck, it’s likely that it was never used for playing in a pub, but was instead a collector's curiosity. We once again turned to David Parlett for answers:

“It’s hard to specify what games were played where in 15th-century Europe. We have a number of references to various names of games, but they are not all identifiable for certain, as books of rules were not published till the 17th century. The earliest known trick-taking game is Karnöffel [...]. Gambling games would have included (at least in Germany) Bocken, the ancestor of Poker; perhaps Thirty-One, the ancestor of Blackjack; and the ancestors of what we now regard as simple games for children, such as Beggar-my-Neighbour. The French game of Triomphe, ultimate ancestor of Whist and Bridge, may possibly have been developing at this time.”

So while we can’t be certain of the exact games the Cloisters Deck might have been destined for, we still wanted to answer the question: was the deck any fun?

Is this a good hand? I have no idea.

The museum would not let us play with the deck itself (full disclosure: it seemed silly to ask), so with the magic of glue and a color printer, we made our own Hofjager Hunting Pack and gathered Atlas Obscura staffers together to attempt to play the oldest card game we could find rules for, Karnöffel.

First recorded in Bavaria in 1426, Karnöffel is a game that seems like it must be one of poker's ancestors. Essentially, players are given a hand of five cards, and then play each card against their opponents, trying to bluff and raise the point value with each trick. The specific rules can be found here.

The hardest part of the game to our modern minds was the hierarchy of trump cards. It follows a logic that is only barely based on the actual card numbers. As staff writer Sarah Laskow explains:

"The best/most confusing part of the old game was the relative strength of the cards. The devil beat 6, which stood for the pope. But 6 beat the king. And 3 was more powerful than 8 for some reason."

This likely made sense to seasoned players at the time, but to two Internet writers, it was a bit baffling.

Nonetheless, we made our way through three hands of the game, and by the end of the third we had a pretty good handle on the archaic mechanics. And frankly it was getting pretty fun.

You've just activated my trap card!

It seems that betting, bluffing, and getting the upper hand on your opponent is just as satisfying today as it was in the 1400s.

The Hofjager Hunting Pack can currently be viewed at the Cloisters in Manhattan.

A cast of an archaeopteryx specimen in the Australian Museum. (Photo by Denise Chan via Flickr)

Think of how many people have seen the most famous dinosaur and hominid fossils on display in the world’s natural history museums. It’s in the millions. These ordinary creatures that died, usually in some ordinary way, are now some of the most famous organisms in the history of the world, the subject of fascination hundreds of thousands of years later. It’s amazing. We should all have a chance at that kind of fame.

But what are the chances an individual human will become a fossil and end up as celebrated as Leonardo the partially mummified Brachylophosaur? 

“Pretty minimal,” laughed Mark Norell, the chair of the paleontology department at the American Museum of Natural History. There are things you can do, especially in your last breathing moments, to goose your chances of become a fossil, but, he says, there’s no way to guarantee that your fossilized bones will be discovered in 100,000 years. 

“We have a fossil record, and it goes back billions of years, but nevertheless it only represents a miniscule fraction, like point-zero-zero-zero-etcetera percent, of both individuals and species that have ever lived on the planet, because most things just don't preserve,” says Norell. “It's a very rare event to become a fossil.”

So before we can get to tips and tricks for becoming a fossil, we have to do some basic work and figure out what, precisely, a fossil even is, and where they come from.

“Fossils are basically any indication of ancient life,” says Norell. “That can be body fossils, bone fossils, fossil seashells, and even things like tracks.”

Fossil nautilus. (Image via Hitchster/Flickr)

There are a few different ways fossils can be preserved for the 10,000 years or so it takes to be considered a fossil (before that, material is considered remains, or evidence, or something other than a fossil. It’s kind of a loose definition). The most important part: the body has to be buried suddenly, which is rare. Rapid burial can happen due to natural effects, including volcanic eruptions, which bury things in ash, or dying near a flooding stream, which rapidly covers the body in sediment.

Now and then, an animal is preserved intact in a substance like tar or resin, but it’s a better bet to try to get rid of our lousy, temporary body parts entirely, and replace them with something stronger, like crystals. Most fossils are made when mineral-rich water interacts with decaying bodies: minerals, like silica and calcite, are left behind, sometimes within cells, sometimes in the places where cells used to be, and, thanks to time and pressure, become solid. Imagine a deflating balloon that you fill slowly, as slowly as it deflates, with molten metal. Eventually the balloon will be not really a balloon anymore, but it will still have the shape of a balloon--and it’ll be much, much more sturdy than it ever was during its time as a flimsy structure of air and rubber.

So, that’s how fossils are made. But how how can an individual person attempt to become one?

Certain types of animals are more likely to end up as fossils. Mostly that’s due to how many very hard body parts we have: those body parts have to survive for quite awhile without being broken by the elements in order to even begin those various fossilization processes. Birds, for example, are very, very rare in the fossil record, because avian bones are incredibly fragile, and are unlikely to remain intact long enough to become fossils. On the other hand, it turns out humans are actually fairly well-suited to becoming fossils.

“Mammals have a very good record, because teeth make fantastic fossils,” says Norell. “They're incredibly hard, incredibly resilient. Most of the fossils we find of mammals are teeth.” Great! We have lots of teeth. Mammal bones, too, are quite hard compared to avian or reptile bones. We’ve got a head start already. On the other hand, there aren’t that many humans in the fossil record, which starts, remember, somewhere around 10,000 years ago. That’s why fossils like Lucy, an Australopithecus fossil found in Ethiopia, are such a big deal. So how come there aren’t more?

Norell says it’s because, until the modern era, there simply weren’t all that many humans. “You look at East Africa and you find, like, hundreds of fossil cows for every Australopithecus fossil you find,” says Norell, referring to an extinct early hominid. But that’s changed in the past few thousand years, and there are lots and lots of human remains found from the Neolithic times right up to the present, just lying around.

A cast of Homo neanderthalensis in the American Museum of Natural History. (Photo by Adam Foster via Flickr)

Even better, human burial rites are often, albeit accidentally, really effective pre-fossilization prep. An animal that dies typically lays where it, in all likelihood, will be eaten by scavengers or bashed around by heat, humidity, rocks, water, and other environmental hazards. But we humans bury our dead. And we don’t just bury: we often bury in caskets, which have the effect of protecting the corpse during its early, most vulnerable years on the long road to fossilization.

“We can look at graves from the Medieval period, 500, 600 years ago, that have been exhumed, and the caskets have decomposed but the bodies are usually in pretty good shape,” says Norell. We are, effectively, performing our own rapid burial procedures that normally would have to come from extraordinary natural events.

But there are also major location-based factors in deciding whether you’ll become a fossil. It’s a bad idea to be anywhere near a fault line; earthquakes tend to break up burgeoning fossils and sometimes, even if the fossil remains intact, can hurl them deep underground where it’s unlikely they’ll be found. You will also want to be somewhere that’s well-drained, so running water can’t bash the proto-fossil body apart, or raise it to the surface where it’ll be eaten by scavengers.

Where, praytell, is the best place for aspiring fossils to die?

“You can't really predict what's going to happen in the future,” says Norell, “but an ideal kind of place would be someplace out on the Great Plains.” It’s got everything: it’s tectonically stable, well-drained, with few major rivers running through it. It’s likely to stay the way it is for quite a long time. “Those sorts of habitats, we know from excavating animals all over the world, are most likely to preserve fossils,” says Norell.

There’s even the potential to be buried the way the dinosaurs were, in a natural event. The Yellowstone Caldera, in Wyoming, has a history of belching huge amounts of volcanic ash all over the Great Plains. You don’t want to be too close to the volcano, because there’s a fair amount of earth-shaking movement around it, but western Nebraska and northwestern South Dakota seem just about perfect.

If you want to become a fossil, and achieve textbook fame in tens of thousands of years and get studied as an educational example of bad ecological behavior, die intact, and be buried somewhere in the Great Plains. And make sure you have all your teeth.

This prairie in Colorado might be a fitting fossil graveyard. (Photo by Nicholas A. Tonnelli via Flickr)

Not creepy at all. (Photo: mjeshenton on Flickr)

There are countless monuments and stories celebrating the bravery and successes of crime-fighters and detectives—for good reason, of course. But there are also a number of memorials to events that have gone unsolved to this day, despite the best efforts of investigators. From graves that hold unidentified corpses to monuments that still get covered in mysterious graffiti, these monuments to mystery remember stories of crimes that no one was able to solve. Here are five:

1. HINTERKAIFECK MEMORIAL
Ingolstadt, Germany

The site of the farmhouse where an unknown killer burdered the Gruber family. (Photo: Andreas Keller on Wikipedia)

This austere German plinth remembers a haunting case that would come to involve incest, psychics, and post-mortem decapitation. German farmer Andreas Gruber lived on the remote Hinterkaifeck farmstead with his wife, their daughter, and two grandchildren, one of which was suspected to have been fathered by Gruber himself. Gruber began noticing strange occurrences such as finding footsteps leading out of the woods, but not back in, and hearing footfalls in the attic. Despite this, Gruber never went to the police, and shortly thereafter he and his family were brutally murdered. After discovering the crime, the police found they had no leads as to the killer, and after dead-ends in every direction they had the victims heads removed and sent to Munich for review by a psychic. Unsurprisingly, this grim tactic didn't provide any further traction in the case. The heads were lost during World War II, but the bodies are buried in a group grave, and all that stands on the site of the former farmhouse today is this memorial to the mystery.   

The farmstead as it looked at the time of the crimes. (Photo: Andreas Biegleder on Wikipedia)

2. WYCHBURY OBELISK
Hagley, England

The more pressing question is who keeps writing that? (Photo: David Buttery on Wikimedia)

Officially known as the Hagley Monument, this English plinth has all been all but disassociated from its original context, in favor of standing in as an enigmatic crypto-memorial to a skeleton found in a tree. The obelisk was created in the mid-1700s, but was not given its current identity until a frightening discovery in 1943. It was during that year that some children found a skull in an elm tree in the Hagley Wood. This morbid find led to the discovery of the entire skeleton that had been hidden there for over a year. A year after the remains were discovered, unsettling graffiti began appearing in the area simply asking, "WHO PUT BELLA DOWN THE WYCH-ELM?" or some variation. Could it have been the killer looking for recognition that they failed to receive due to the furor of World War II? No one has identified the woman in the tree, nor how she ended up there. yet the mysterious graffiti continues to appear to this day the historic spire. Now it is more urban legend than incriminating vandalism.      

The obelisk seems naked without some creepy graffiti.  (Photo: Tony Hisgett on Wikimedia)

3. VILLISCA AXE MURDER HOUSE
Villisca, Iowa

Sweet dreams. (Photo: Megan on Atlas Obscura)

Less a memorial than a morbid cash-in, the Villisca Ax Murder House operates as a bed and breakfast/museum combination where visitors can spend some time in a house where eight people were mysteriously murdered. During the wee hours of June 10th, 1912 an unknown axe murderer entered the house at 508 East 2nd South in Villisca, Iowa and bludgeoned six adults and two children to death. The crime sent shockwaves of accusations and suspicion throughout the community, and number of people were accused, but none convicted. To this day, no one knows who committed the murders, but modern investigators, hobbyists, and psychics have still tried to crack the case, all unsuccessfully. Even if you don't want to try and solve the mystery, the house is open for tours and even overnight stays. If that seems like something you might enjoy.   

There is an Etsy project in here somewhere. (Photo: Megan on Atlas Obscura)

4. GRAVE OF THE MAD TRAPPER OF RAT RIVER
Aklavik, Canada

It's a mad, mad, mad, mad, mad world. (Photo: Caveat Doctor on Wikipedia)

A rustic sign tells the strange tale of the Mad Trapper of Rat River, a John Doe who led mounties Canadian mounties on a nearly impossible wilderness chase before before being gunned down, providing no answers about his true identity. A man calling himself "Albert Johnson" moved into a cabin in the Northwest Territory of Canada in 1931, and it wasn't long before he was accused of tampering with local trappers' equipment. When the mounties arrived at Johnson's cabin, the confrontation quickly escalated to a full-on siege that left the wooden house in ruins after the authorities tried to flush Johnson out with dynamite. Still, Johnson bolted into the wilderness with the mounties hot on his tail. Unbelievably, the wild man remained on the run through the frozen Canadian backwoods for over month, before he was found 150 miles from his demolished cabin. The man calling himself Albert Johnson was gunned down by the authorities, who never learned a single concrete fact about the mad fugitive.    

Even in death, the mystery trapper definitely sells the "mad" part. (Photo: Royal Canadian Mounted Police on Wikipedia)

5. THE GRAVE OF THE TAMAM SHUD MAN
Adelaide, Australia

Cold War spy or lovelorn suicide? (Photo: Bletchley on Wikipedia)

Known alternately as the Tamam Shud Man or the Somerton Man, the mysterious body found on an Australian beach in 1948 is one of the most baffling cold cases the country has ever seen. The body was found on December 1st, 1948, lounging against a sea wall, having died of unknown causes. Investigators were unable to identify the man based on any of his physical features, so they began searching for abandoned bags and luggage, assuming he must have been a visitor to the area. They found a briefcase that was linked to the body by the appearance of a distinctive type orange thread. In addition to the thread, the briefcase contained a pocket watch that held a scrap of paper torn from a book; the paper simply read "Tamum Shud," Persian for "It is Ended." This phrase is also the final line of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam which was popular at the time, but rare in Australia. Detectives were soon able to find the very book the paper was torn from, but it presented more questions than answers. The book had a page filled with what appeared to be indecipherable code. After undoubtedly letting out a frustrated sigh, the investigators traced the book to a local nurse who refused to confirm anything about the case. To this day no one is sure what happened to the Tamam Shud Man, but it is believed that he was either a poisoned Cold War spy, or a lovelorn suicide. Whichever it is, he is most certainly a fascinating mystery.   

 Maybe it was a coded love poem? (Photo: Viniciusmc on Wikipedia)

A drove of hogs nears Chicago as a train passes in the background in an illustration from the 1860s. (Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

On a trip through the North Carolina mountains in 1878, Virginia newspaper editor James Cowardin found himself surrounded by thousands of pigs. “Hogs were before us and behind us, and both to the right and to the left of us,” Cowardin wrote. “There was whipping and shouting and twisting and turning” as the swineherds yelled, “Suey!” “Suey!” “Get out!” “Suey hogs!” “D—d devil take the swine!” Cowardin too cursed the pigs at first, but once he settled into the rhythm of the road, he began to daydream about following his “grunting friends” to their destination and enjoying a pig slaughter feast: “What luxury in spare ribs, backbone, and sausage we would have,” he fantasized, “not to mention pigs’ tails broiled on hot rocks!”

The flesh of Cowardin’s traveling companions, though, was destined for other stomachs. He had stumbled upon a seasonal movement of livestock that had been happening each winter for more than half a century. He was in the middle of a pig drive.

The swine had been fattened in eastern Tennessee, a fertile farming region with many pigs and few people. A couple of hundred miles away lay the plantations of the South, which didn’t raise much food. Planters preferred to grow cotton, sell it for cash, and buy pork to feed their slaves (or, after the Civil War, their sharecroppers and tenant farmers). The hog supply was in Tennessee, the demand in South Carolina and Georgia, and in between lay the Blue Ridge mountains. No navigable rivers or railroads connected the two, so there was only one way to move the hogs: on foot. The route followed the valley of French Broad River through the Smoky Mountains, passed through Asheville, North Carolina, and then descended the Blue Ridge escarpment into Spartanburg and Greenville, South Carolina. 

Inns known as "wagon stands"—such as this one just north of Asheville, North Carolina—were spaced at ten-mile intervals along the drovers' roads, giving hogs and their herders a place to sleep and eat before resuming the journey and walking another ten miles the next day. (Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Think of it: Pig drives, like cattle drives, only stranger. Who knew a pig could walk that far or would travel in the desired direction? Apparently, not many people. In 2006 a prominent archaeologist, a specialist in livestock, baldly insisted that pigs “cannot be driven.” The historical record suggests otherwise. 

Before motorized trucks became common, nearly all livestock went to market on foot: cattle, horses, mules, sheep, goats, turkeys, ducks, and geese. (“That was the prettiest drive of anything they drove,” a Tennessee drover said of geese. “They’d just paddle along on them webbed feet.”) Hogs, though, ruled the road. Americans raised more pigs than any other type of animal, so naturally swine crowded out other beasts on the turnpikes. The best estimates suggest that in the antebellum South, five times as many hogs were driven as all other animals combined. In 1847 one tollgate in North Carolina recorded 692 sheep, 898 cattle, 1,317 horses, and 51,753 hogs. 

Here a shepherd and his dog herd sheep along the French Broad River in North Carolina just south of the Tennessee border in 1873. (Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

As the United States grew, traveling hordes of pigs crisscrossed the country in all directions. The farmers who rushed to settle the West after the Revolutionary War soon returned east with pigs to sell. Around 1800 some of the very first Corn Belt hogs were driven from Ohio farms to Baltimore slaughterhouses. Other hogs walked from Kentucky to Virginia, from the Nashville basin to Alabama, and from southern Illinois to Chicago.

 By the 1840s and 1850s, a growing rail network mostly ended the era of long-distance driving, but the railroad builders were stymied by the Blue Ridge Mountains, which separated the hog-raising regions of Kentucky and Tennessee from the pork-eating slave South. A few farmers from the Bluegrass region of Kentucky—pig country before the horses took over—walked their hogs through the Cumberland Gap and all the way to Charleston, South Carolina, a distance of more than five hundred miles.

The Smoky Mountains rise above Del Rio, Tennessee. The town, formerly know as Big Creek, served as a gathering point for drovers before they herded their hogs into the mountains for the long journey South. (Photo: Brian Stansberry, Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0)

Pig drives followed fairly standard protocols. The drover, on horseback, rode at the front of a herd that might range from a few hundred to 1,000 or more hogs. Following behind, on foot, were his employees, called drovers, usually one for every one hundred pigs. The drivers shouted, “Soo-eey,” “Su-boy,” or “Ho-o-o-yuh”—this last, according to one witness, was pronounced thusly: “The first syllable is like a prolonged wail, while the last syllable is hurled out with a snap and a thud, much like the exclamation one might make if suddenly hit in the solar plexus.”

This was not easy work. Whenever a roadside creek or pond appeared, the pigs flopped into the mud and commenced wallowing. The secret, one drover said, lay in not exerting too much control: “Never let a hog know he’s being driven. Just let him take his way, and keep him going in the right direction.” The start of the journey was especially difficult, for during that stage loud noises could send pigs stampeding back toward their home farms. One solution was to sew up their eyelids: temporarily blinded, the pigs clumped together and kept to the road by feel. At their destination, the stitch was clipped and their vision restored. (The young Abraham Lincoln, charged with driving a recalcitrant drove of hogs aboard a riverboat, pulled out a needle and thread and started sewing.) After a few days on the road, the hogs settled into a routine, and the biggest problem became beasts who couldn’t keep up. Lame pigs were traded to innkeepers for room and board.

 

Pigs on the drovers' roads ranged from unimproved types--like this one from a 1877 farming manual--to breeds such as the Poland China that had been specially developed to walk long distances. (Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Cows, sheep, and goats have been driven great distances for millennia because they move well in herds and require only grass or other greenery along the way. Driving pigs on such long journeys has been rare historically because it is more difficult: the animals not only needed shade and tended to scatter but also required provisions en route. The swineherds of the Roman Empire were among the few to take on such challenges: tens of thousands of hogs walked well over a hundred miles to Rome from the forested regions of Campania, Samnium, and Lucania. We don’t know many details of their journey, but we do know that they lost weight.

Weight loss on the road was known as “drift,” and in the United States an infrastructure grew up to ensure it didn’t happen. Because pigs could walk about ten miles a day, inns—often known as wagon stands—sprang up at ten-mile intervals along the roads, offering drovers and their pigs food and a place to sleep. At the taverns, the hogs were herded into corrals and given corn, usually eight bushels per one hundred hogs. One traveler described watching a drove of 1,000 hogs eat their evening meal: “The music made by this large number of hogs, in eating corn on a frosty night, I will never forget.”

Men drive hogs down an Appalachian road in this 1857 illustration from Harper's New Monthly Magazine. Hogs that went lame on the journey, like the one in the foreground, were traded to tavern owners to offset the cost of lodging. (Photo: Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.)

Because droving was a decentralized trade, it’s impossible to know its full scale. It is clear, however, that hog drives were at least as significant as the far more famous cattle drives. The largest cattle drives, from Texas to Kansas, involved as many as 600,000 cattle a year, but they lasted just fifteen years or so. Hog droving, by comparison, involved hundreds of thou- sands of animals during peak years and on some routes lasted nearly a century. From Kentucky alone, as many as 100,000 hogs per year were driven east to Richmond, Baltimore, and Philadelphia. In 1855 more than 83,000 hogs walked along a little-known route through Mount Airy, North Carolina. And there were many other routes: through Asheville along the French Broad River, from the Nashville basin along the Natchez Trace into Alabama, through Knoxville into Georgia, and out of Kentucky through the Cumberland Gap or along the Kanawha River. The route through the Cumberland Gap in Kentucky, known as the Wilderness Road in the years immediately after Daniel Boone blazed it, later came to be known as the “Kaintuck Hog Road” after its most frequent traveler. Once the drovers had crossed the mountains, they fanned out to sell their hogs, either at individual plantations or at the local slaughterhouses that served the rural market.

Pig statues in downtown Asheville commemorate the great nineteenth-century hog drives. Notches cut into a pig's ear--shown here on the adult pig--served to identity its owner, much like a cattle brand. The inclusion of the piglet statue is historically inaccurate: the hogs were being driven to slaughter, so all piglets would have stayed behind on the farm to grow before making the journey the following year. (Photo: Mark Essig.)

Hog droving, as the practice was known, formed an essential link in the global economy. In peak years as many as 150,000 hogs made the journey on this single turnpike, and many other mountain routes also carried pigs from upland farms to the Deep South. The pork fed the slaves, who raised the cotton, which supplied textile mills in New England and Great Britain, which made the fabric that clothed the world. And it all depended on a few men herding hogs through the mountains of North Carolina.

This is an excerpt from Lesser Beasts: A Snout-to-Tail History of the Humble Pig. For more info, go here.

University of Florida's Bat House and Barn (Used with permission from Florida Museum of Natural History. Photo by Kristen Grace.)

Bats like caves—but they'll take a stadium, if it's available. And that's a problem at Texas A&M, where bats have colonized the university's Kyle Field. As the Texas Tribune reports, the stadium had declared itself "bat-friendly" but football fans weren't exactly enjoying the sight or scent of guano on the walls, ground and concession stands. The university has tried to evict the bats from the stadium, causing them to take up residence elsewhere on campus (currently, they're getting comfortable in the swimming pool building). By preventing the bats from nesting, though, the university could end up killing thousands of animals, an outcome that no one wants.

One potential solution that could benefit both bats and people? Build them their own bespoke bat housing.

"In the case of Texas A&M, what they did incorrectly is that they did not build large artificial roosts in advance of excluding the bats from the stadium," says Dianne Odegard, education and public outreach manager at Bats Conservation International.

Making homes for bats, though, has been a design problem for humans ever since we began trying to construct artificial caves in the early 20th century. About 20 years ago, when University of Florida faced a similar problem, the school attempted to house its own displaced winged tenants. Now, the Gainesville campus is home to what the university says is the world's largest artificial bat house. These are Brazilian free-tailed bats, and they like roosting in places like attics, stadiums, or in narrows spaces between buildings. The Florida colony is estimated to have grown to 300,000. (That's about 6 bats for every UF student.) These bats have the option of settling in either the Bat House or the Bat Barn—seen above— and there's plenty of room for the colony to expand: the university thinks it can house up to 750,000 bats.

Here's what the scene looks like inside:

Once, the bats lived in fancier digs, in one of UF's historic buildings. But after renovations started in the late '80s, they decamped to university's stadium, where, as in College Station, they became something of a nuisance for football fans. In 1991, UF's athletic department decided to invest $30,000 in creating a more permanent, less problematic home for the colony, as the Sun-Sentinel reported at the time. To lure the bats into the newly built Bat House, the university piled bat guano inside, to make it smell like home to the colony.

It took the bats about four years to move permanently into UF's first Bat House. As tenants, bats can be hard to attract, as Charles Campbell found out in the early 20th century. Campbell wanted to build mass bat housing in order to combat malaria, on the theory that bats would eat mosquitos. As BATS magazine wrote in 1989, he assumed it wouldn't be too difficult to create suitable bat housing.

"Can bats like bees be colonized and made to multiply where we want them?" he wondered. "This would be no feat at all!...Don't they just live in any old ramshackle building? They would be only too glad to have a little home such as we provide for our song birds..."

But as Campbell discovered, it wasn't that easy. His first bat tower, in San Antonio, failed. It took him about a decade to develop one that worked. His second bat tower, which he built 10 miles south of the city, at Mitchell's Lake, attracted a bat colony big enough that by the 1920s, people used to gather in the evenings to watch the bats emerge, BATS writes.

Even that success, though, wasn't a true breakthrough in bat housing. When a Florida developer, Richter Clyde Perky, used Campbell's design to build a bat tower on Sugar Loaf Key, the bats never moved in—it's still standing today, and still empty of bats.

The Sugar Loaf Key Bat Tower (Flickr user doneille, CC-BY-SA 2.0)

Since Campbell's day, though, designers have had better luck building houses that bats actually like. Not all species will live in bat houses to begin with, but for those that will, BCI's Odegard says that, in general, bat houses need to be at least 12 feet off the ground, near a source of water, and warm enough to keep the bats cozy. (Usually, that means it needs to be in a sunny spot.) A house with multiple chambers will also help keep bats happy, by creating microclimates that can warm or cool the bats, depending on their needs.

Get all this right, and it's possible to make a place that bats will want to call home. (Although, says Odegard, there's no guarantee.) In London, it only took weeks for bats to move into the Berkeley Bat House after it was built in 2009 — and they're still happily living there on what looks like very pleasant pond.

A sunrise falconry exhibition in the California desert. The sacred Hindu caves of Goa Gajah, Bali. The secret collections of the Suzallo Library in Seattle. A private orchestral performance at the Robot Church in Brooklyn. The eerie ghost cities in Chernobyl’s contaminated zone.

Welcome to Obscura Day 2015.

At Atlas Obscura, we believe there is always something amazing to discover—not just around the world, but around the corner. That’s why we’re thrilled to announce that May 30, 2015, will be Obscura Day—a day when we celebrate this mission of discovery and exploration with unusual, wondrous, and curious real-life expeditions, a day to visit the hidden treasures in your own hometown.

We’re inviting you to join us on more than 150 special adventures, tours, and exhibitions in 39 states, in over 20 countries, and on six continents. (They were busy in Antarctica!). Now in its third year, Obscura Day is designed to make explorers out of everyone. The event possibilities range from the intimate to the expansive: walkthrough the World's Largest Collection of the World's Smallest Versions of the World's Largest Things in Lucas, KS; ride California’s Historic Death Valley train; tour the Cathedral of Junk in Austin, TX or experience a sorcerer protective invocation in Iceland.  

The whole day’s roster is at www.AtlasObscura.com/ObscuraDay2015, where you can browse a list or search on a map. Don’t wait to register: Events fill up quickly.