Monkey Island was thought to be a myth.An island inhabited only by monkeys in South Carolina sounded like the stuff of urban legend. Yet it was revealed to be all true. 

Back in 1979, the Caribbean Primate Research Center in Puerto Rico relocated some 1,400 rhesus monkeys to Morgan Island off the coast from Beaufort, South Carolina. A few more shipments of monkeys arrived in 1980. The uninhabited island in the Low Country was a mix of marshland with 400 acres of elevated terrain forested with cypress trees and live oak. Reportedly, the Puerto Rico station (which still exists as its own monkey island), had some dangerous escapes of monkeys who were infected with the herpes B virus, a disease that doesn't impact monkeys, but for humans is highly fatal.  

A rhesus monkey in the Leipziger Zoo (photograph by Moritz Kunert)

The monkeys on Morgan Island have now swelled to a population over 4,000, and while no testing is done on the island, several hundred are captured each year and transported to labs around the United States for testing for diseases and, in more recent years, bioterrorism. The island was privately-owned and officially a secret until it was purchased by the state in 2002, and is now supported by the National Institutes of Health with a much more open profile. 

The rhesus monkeys are native to India, but seem to have adapted well to the Deep South and are quite protective of their small territory. Visitors are strictly prohibited from the island, which is ringed with NO TRESPASSING signs, and those who venture near by boat often see the monkeys swarming the beaches to protect their shore. 

Here's footage of the monkeys on Morgan Island in 2011:

And a short report on "discovering" the urban legend of Monkey Island from 2008:

MONKEY ISLAND: Morgan Island, South Carolina 

More Animal Islands can be found here >

Curious Facts of the Week: Helping you build your cocktail party conversation repertoire with a new strange fact every week, and an amazing place to explore its story. See all the Curious Facts here> 

Swedish reindeer race (photograph by James Losey) 

Winter means reindeer games in some of the chillier parts of the world, where the horned hoofstock are an integral part of everyday life. Reindeer racing is a popular and highly competitive sport in parts of Norway, Finland, and Russia, where reindeers pullings sleds or skiers sprint over the snow. And then there's Anchorage, Alaska, where the reindeer racing is more of an actual man vs. animal survival competition. 

For us, there's no other animal that looks quite so joyous in its racing, with its lolling tongue and gangly limbs. So in the spirit of the holidays when the fictional Rudolph is resurrected for annual Christmas storytelling, we celebrate the real racing reindeer of the world. 

SAMI FESTIVAL
 Tromsø, Norway

photograph by Ronel Reyes

The most thrilling of the reindeer races is likely the one in Tromsø, Norway, where intrepid skiers cling to harnesses behind what are reportedly the "fastest reindeers in Norway." The races take place right in the center of the city as part of Sami National Day in February, which is a celebration of the Sami people who are indigenous to Norway and for whom the reindeer is a source of fur, transportation, meat, and cultural pride. The next Sami Festival reindeer race is February 9, 2014, but if you can't make it that far north or just can't wait, here's a bit of a preview of the Nordic excitement:

photograph by Bjarte Aarmo Lund

photograph by Jim H/Flickr user

photograph by Arctic Council

photograph by Arctic Council

photograph by anjc/Wikimedia

photograph by Arctic Council

photograph by Jim H/Flickr user

LEVI REINDEER RACE
Levi, Finland

photograph by Jann Kuusisaari

Lapland in Finland is also a center for Sami culture, and reindeer racing is just as popular as in Norway, if a little less urban. Skiers in the reindeer races in Levi also each are pulled along by a reindeer, the competition being a way to determine the fastest, strongest reindeers for breeding in the herding cooperatives that compete. In fact, reindeer are so beloved in Lapland that in the 2013 World Cup held at the nearby Levi ski resort, reindeers were actually awarded to the top skiers (but before you think that's strange, note that in Val d'Isere in France, racers win cows).

photograph by Jann Kuusisaari

ROVANIEMI REINDEER RACE
Rovaniemi, Finland

photograph by j/Flickr user

Over in Rovaniemi, the capital of Lapland, the reindeer races are held in March as a celebration of the coming spring. Dramatically staged at sunset, the reindeer races are staged in sprint form with elimination rounds until the two fastest reindeers remain in a final after-dark showdown.  

REINDEER CARNIVAL
Oulu, Finland

photograph by jarzan/Flickr user

The world record as of 2013 for a 12 meter reindeer sprint race was reportedly 14.96 seconds, so on the short track for the Oulu, Finland, races in February, the reindeers just appear as furry flashes. The Reindeer Carnival also includes less swift, but equally rambunctious, reindeer sled racing, and you can even get your own reindeer driving license at the event. 

NARYAN-MAR REINDEER RACE 
Naryan-Mar, Russia

photograph by ezioman/Flickr user

Reindeer sled racing is also the game in Naryan-Mar, Russia, where teams from reindeer herding communities travel from all over for the competition. In fact, the reindeer is so central to life and transportation that the the 2014 Olympic flame even passed through the area on a reindeer sled. 

photograph by ezioman/Flickr user

photograph by ezioman/Flickr user

photograph by ezioman/Flickr user

REINDEER RUN
Anchorage, Alaska, United States

photograph by Diana Norgaard

Anchorage, Alaska, has a bit of a different take on this whole reindeer racing thing, where instead of people racing with the reindeer, they race against them in a sort of Pamplona-style Running of the Reindeers. At the annual Fur Rondy held at the end of February leading up to the Iditarod Sled Dog Race, people gather in groups and then sprint down the center of the city, all the while a voice on the loud speaker is counting steadily down to when the reindeer are released into the crowd. The runners then sprint as fast as they can while dodging the horns and hoofs bearing down on the snowy racetrack. 

photograph by Arctic Warrior

 Discover more of the world's strangest festivals on Atlas Obscura >

Obstetrical Manikin in the Dittrick Museum, Cleveland, Ohio (photograph by Laura Travis)

This journey of birth began, for the Dittrick Museum of Medical History, with a headless anatomical manikin.

Composed of wicker or wire or actual human pelvic bones, covered with chamois leather, housing a collection of springs, bags, levers, thread and colored liquor — these strange devices all have an unusual place in one of the most virulent debates of obstetrical history. Namely, who has final authority over the body in labor? The latest exhibition at the Dittrick, where I serve as Research Associate, focuses on the birthing manikins and other devices that shifted midwifery away from women and into the hands of surgeons.

In the 18th century, traditional female midwives were replaced by "man-midwives" — doctors trained by other doctors who used instruments like the forceps. Dr. William Smellie, for instance, trained 900 man-midwives in 10 years. How could a single professional train so many in so little time? The answer was technology — and it would revolutionize obstetrical training (and the meaning of whose labor really mattered). Smellie resolved to create “machines which should so exactly imitate real women and children as to exhibit to the learner all the difficulties that happen in midwifery,” contrived and made, says the man-midwife in his 1877 Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery, “by dint of uncommon labour.” 

Ivory Anatomical Manikin at the Dittrick Museum, Cleveland, Ohio (photograph by Laura Travis)

Making New Feet

That the midwife might claim credit for “birthing” the baby — replacing the laboring woman with her own “labors” — strikes us today as ridiculous and even repellent. However, even in France, where female practitioners were primary, the midwife was responsible for “making new feet," as Nina Gelbart cites in The King’s Midwife: A History and Mystery of Madame du Coudray. Our shock at such statements has to do, in part, with our own cultural context — we privilege the concept of “natural birth” wherein the mother takes center stage. But what do we mean?

Women have been giving birth without modern medical intervention for many centuries, but that does not mean they gave birth all alone and without help. Human birth is complicated and our offspring are larger in proportion to our bodies, and yet more helpless than many other mammals. As a result, someone usually helps, supports, or intervenes in some way during the process. Shifts in method are not, therefore, so surprising — though the speed at which they take place sometimes is! What, then, were the historical practices, events, discoveries, politics, and stressors that gave rise to men-midwives?

Kahun Gynaecological Papyrus, Petrie Museum inventory number UC32057 (Copyright of the Petrie Museum of Egyptian Archaeology, UCL)

The Advent of Technology

I return once more to that headless anatomical manikin: the 18th century obstetrical phantom. In 2010, the Dittrick acquired an obstetrical manikin originally constructed in France. It is not as complete as the famous manikin of French midwife Madame du Coudray (housed in Rouen, France), but is compelling in its own right. It may even have been used by one of du Coudray’s students, nearly all of whom were women. This was not the case in England or Italy, however, where the majority of students working on obstetrical manikins were men — future man-midwives who paid a fee for instruction so as to set up shop on their own. For William Smellie, the device allowed male students to practice another technological advancement — the forceps — without the danger of injuring a live woman.

Technology, for Smellie, meant saving women, but it had plenty of critics. One of these, midwife Elizabeth Nihell, asked in her 1760 A Treatise on Midwifery: “Must not [the pupil] acquire a habit of the touch exquisitely nice, exquisitely just, for discerning between a mere wooden machine, and a body sensible, delicate, animated, and well organized?” John Burton, a physician, also argued in a 1752 letter to Smellie that “Upon a machine you may do such a Thing,” but never upon live women and their delicate parts. And yet, forceps not only enjoyed favor in the 18th century, they are still used today.

Obstetrical Manikin at the Dittrick Museum, Cleveland, Ohio (photograph by Laura Travis)

Obstetrical manikins are still used today as well, and there are many varieties. As visitors walk through the Dittrick’s history of  birth exhibition, they are not merely seeing the unusual devices and practices of a bygone era. Rather, they are looking at our inheritance, an unbroken series of developments that continues today in the high-tech birthing centers around the country. And — in exploring the contest between male and female midwives of the 18th century — they are also witnessing the dawn of a debate that still rages over who, in the end, has birth "rights": the midwife, the obstetrician, or, at last, the laboring woman herself.

Sometimes an artifact, like the obstetric manikin, serves as inspiration. We have built an entire exhibition around its story — and we look forward to Phase II of our renovation project at the Dittrick, which will carry the story into the 19th century and beyond. We hope you will join us!

The Dittrick's exhibition on the history of birth is now on view at the museum in Cleveland, Ohio. 

Brandy Schillace is Research Associate at the Dittrick Museum of Medical History in Cleveland, Ohio. Check out the Dittrick Museum blog to keep up with the fascinating medical history at the museum.

Sources:

Smellie, William. Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery. Ed. with Annotations, by Alfred H. McClintock. New Sydenham Society, 1877, 251. Digitized August 2011. Accessed 12/12/2013

Gelbart, Nina. The king’s midwife: a history and mystery of Madame du Coudray. (University of California Press, 1999): 80

Nihell, Elizabeth “A Treatise on Midwifery.” Eighteenth-Century British Midwifery Volume 6. (London: Pickering and Chatto, 2008), 83.

John Burton, A Letter to William Smellie, M.D., Containing Critical and Practical Remarks on His Treatise on the Theory and Practice of Midwifery. (London, 1752), 147.

Mariko Mori, "Journey to Seven Light Bay, Primal Rhythm" (2011), still from digital video (courtesy of Faou Foundation, New York)

The winter solstice has been seen as a time of rebirth for centuries. From the neolithic Stonehenge in Great Britain to the Hopewellian Marietta Earthworks in Ohio in the United States, ancient archaeological sites have been found to align with this yearly moment when the sun is at its lowest on the horizon. Japanese artist Mariko Mori is creating modern versions of these celestial sites.

The "Sun Pillar" installed in Seven Light Bay (courtesy of Faou Foundation, New York)

This year's winter solstice in the Northern Hemisphere falls on December 21, and the first phase of Mori's Primal Rhythm project is ready to greet the 2013 occurrence from a small island in Japan. Mori's ambitious plan for Primal Rhythm is to have six permanent installations at six landscapes of natural beauty on the six habitable continents. Through the Faou Foundation, a nonprofit she set up in 2010, she started the project in a tranquil bay on the Japanese island of Miyako. "Faou" is a word that Mori coined to mean "eternal light." This initial phase is currently explored in the exhibition Rebirth: Recent Work by Mariko Mori on view at the Japan Society in New York.

Photograph of the "Sun Pillar" in Seven Light Bay (courtesy of Faou Foundation, New York)

Much of Mori's art in the 1990s focused on the futuristic cyber aesthetic of Japan, and while this public art doesn't have the same manic manga tone, it's still focused on the future. Here it's the fusion of technology with the ancient history of our interaction with the stars. In the Seven Light Bay on Miyako, she installed a "Sun Pillar" that was unveiled with a performance ceremony for the 2011 winter solstice on December 22. The pillar is made from layered acrylic with different hues in this form that gives it an otherworldly pearlescent tone.

The "Sun Pillar" in Seven Light Bay on the winter solstice (courtesy of Faou Foundation, New York)

She went to great lengths to be sure it did not interfere with the natural setting and she also worked with the local community which is now engaged in preserving this new monolith. The second phase of the Seven Light Bay installation is a 10-foot in diameter "Moon Stone" lit with LEDs that shift from red at low tide to blue at high, and will soon be anchored in the water. On the winter solstice, the pillar will cast a shadow that directly strikes the floating orb, like a sundial on the sea. The project was inspired by ancient Jōmon culture in Japan where the shape of the sphere and the pillar recurred at archaeological sites that also responded to the winter solstice. 

Mariko Mori, "Ring" (2012), Lucite, 48 x 2.4 inches (Courtesy of Faou Foundation, New York)

The next installation is planned for Brazil, where Mori is working with the government and conservation groups to install a lucite ethereal ring over a waterfall. Like at Seven Light Bay, it's aimed to be a dialogue rather than an intervention with the natural space, creating a lasting human interaction that brings our attention to the place's beauty, and a new sacred site for the future.

"Ring" installed in the Japan Society (photograph by the author)

Here is Mori's video on the Seven Light Bay project: 

More on Mariko Mori's "Primal Rhythm" project can be explored in the Rebirth: Recent Work by Mariko Mori exhibition on view at the Japan Society in New York through January 12, 2014.

The Luxor Casino and Hotel, Las Vegas (photograph by Bencito the Traveller)

The pyramids of the ancient world are some of the most enduring icons of our planet’s past. From the remnants of the Mayan civilization to the famous monuments of Egypt, and even as far east as Cambodia, the pyramid form has been admired by humans throughout the ages.

Pyramids still feature heavily in modern-day architecture, and while some imitate or reference those ancient wonders of the world, others repurpose the pyramid form, re-imagining the shapes of antiquity in contemporary urban settings.

In the following guide, we look at seven of the world’s most impressive — and often, controversial — modern pyramids.

THE PYRAMID ARENA
Memphis, Tennessee, United States

Our guide starts with a monument ranked as the sixth largest pyramid in the world. At 321 feet in height, the Pyramid Arena in Memphis, Tennessee falls into line just behind ancient Egyptian structures such as the Great Pyramid of Giza and the Red Pyramid at Dahshur.

The Pyramid Arena in Memphis, Tennessee (photograph by Jeremy Atherton, via Wikimedia)

The original design for the Pyramid Arena included a statue of Ramesses II, remembered as "Ramesses the Great," or "Ozymandias." In 2011 the statue was removed, and it now stands on the grounds of the University of Memphis.

Taking its inspirational cues from the city’s namesake — Memphis, the ancient capital of Lower Egypt — the building was designed as a sports arena. Located on the banks of the Mississippi River, this vast complex was built in 1991 with the capacity to seat over 20,000 spectators.

Naturally though, wherever there’s a vast multi-million dollar project shaped like a pyramid, there will inevitably be “Illuminati” theories not far behind. In the case of the Memphis Pyramid, or the "Great American Pyramid," as it was conceived, there are rumors which tie the businessman behind the building — John Tigrett — to shadowy New World Order sects.

The Pyramid Arena seen from Main Street (photograph by Thomas R Machnitzki, via Wikimedia)

The radio host and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones posits that both John Tigrett and his son Isaac were involved in the occult, and picks up on a popular theory which circulated in 1991: workmen involved in the construction of the pyramid were supposedly paid to weld a strange metal box to the inside of the apex. Depending on which story you listen to, the box was delivered by men dressed in black, and the whole procedure had to take place under the cover of night.

As strange as these stories sound, the Memphis Flyer reported that a team of county officials eventually heading up to the top of the pyramid to investigate. There, 300 feet above the River Mississippi they found a metal box welded to a beam. Inside the metal box was a wooden box, with a velvet box inside that, which contained a small crystal skull.

When questioned about the find, Isaac Tigrett — himself co-founder of the Hard Rock Café — claimed it was part of a future publicity stunt to be dubbed "The Egyptian Time Capsule." Others theorized that the crystal skull would have served to activate the energy of the pyramid, and that without its “spiritual battery,” the venue was eventually doomed to failure.

Well, the doom they spoke of proved true enough.

 
The Memphis pyramid in 2011 (photograph by sawdust_media/Flickr user)

A problem with drainage pumps on the pyramid’s opening night caused severe flooding of the arena, and staff had to sandbag the stage and its power cables to prevent electrocuting patrons. It also transpired that the pyramid, which had been promoted as an NBA venue, fell short of NBA standards — and the cost of modifying the arena was so high that it proved cheaper to build the 1994 FedExForum instead.

Other projects have been attempted — and abandoned — in the years since, and the Pyramid Arena has not seen regular use as a sports stadium since 2004. While plans are underway to convert it into a Bass Pro Shop hunting and fishing megastore, the unfortunate history of the venue has earned the arena its local nickname — the “Tomb of Doom.” 

THE PALACE OF PEACE AND RECONCILIATION
Astana, Kazakhstan

Continuing the theme of Illuminati plots, our next pyramid takes us all the way to Kazakhstan, and the Palace of Peace and Reconciliation, the architectural jewel in the crown of the nation’s capital.

Astana's Palace of Peace and Reconciliation (photograph by Darmon Richter)

Following their break from the Soviet Union in 1991, while other former USSR states were suffering widespread economic depression, Kazakhstan was fortunate enough to strike oil instead. The country abandoned its former capital of Almaty — a city located in the southeast, close to the border with China — and instead built the brand new capital at Astana.

Spending billions of petrodollars on the project over the next decade, President Nazarbayev hired some of the most renowned architects in the world, including Britain’s Sir Norman Foster, who was responsible for the design of the pyramid at the city’s heart.

The Palace of Peace and Reconciliation was built between 2004 and 2006, and forms a perfect triangle, measuring 62 meters in height and 62 meters across the base. With local temperatures ranging from plus to minus 40 degrees Celsius between summer and winter, engineers were required to build the pyramid over a steel and concrete skeleton able to endure extreme contraction and expansion.

 
Inside the top floor conference room of the pyramid (photograph by ingalatvia/Flickr user)

The building contains a 1,500-seat opera house in its lowest levels, in addition to education facilities and a circular table in the apex surrounded by windows containing the images of flying doves where the Kazakh congress meets. Its design is claimed to recognize “all the world’s religious faiths.”

However, according to conspiracy theorists (those at xlivescom, for example) the pyramid design is a “representation of the philosophy of the initiates.” It is claimed that the building embodies the esoteric principles of Pythagoras and other teachers of the ancient mystery schools, including strong themes of sun worship. In many of these theories, links are drawn between sun worship and diabolism, based on the biblical definition of Lucifer as, “the Bringer of Light, the Morning Star.” The pyramid's circular congress hall is cited as a perfect example of a “sun table.”

Taken in isolation, perhaps such theories would be easy to dismiss... but these ideas begin to build momentum when one considers the supposed Illuminati symbolism of Astana in more depth.

Astana city centre (photograph by Darmon Richter)

The city really is a dream destination for conspiracy theorists, its futuristic architecture laden with rich symbolism of a seemingly esoteric nature. The city center, for example, has been said to mirror the layout of a Masonic temple: a wide open area decorated in checkered tiles, the presidential palace in the eastern position (the point reserved for the Grand Master’s chair in a Masonic temple), which is flanked by two vast golden pillars.

Of course, it could all be a coincidence, or it could be a knowing nod on behalf of the architects. Many will tell you, however, that the city of Astana is set to become one of the great power centers in the coming New World Order.

Watch this space!    

ALEXANDER GOLOD'S PYRAMID
Moscow, Russia

The previous two entries in this guide highlight the oft-reported significance of pyramid symbology in the esoteric traditions. The connection itself is more than mere aesthetics however, and many have gone on to hypothesize that a unique structural power — or energy — can be found within the pyramidal form.

The Moscow Pyramid (photograph by renidens)

The internet abounds with theories that the pyramids of ancient Egypt (as well as visually similar structures in Mexico and Cambodia, for that matter) were built according to an extraterrestrial design. There are other theories suggesting that the pharaohs of Egypt had access to electricity, and that the pyramids were, in effect, giant power stations. Numerous ideas like this were floated during the 20th century, and led to extensive studies of "pyramid energy." The French occultist Antoine Bovis developed one such theory in the 1930s. Popular stories state that he visited Egypt’s Great Pyramid, and noted that the carcasses of animals that had died inside the pyramid showed no signs of decay. Bovis himself later refuted the myth, saying he had never been to Egypt, although he had observed compelling results in experiments using homemade cardboard pyramids.

In 1949, inspired by the writings of Bovis, the Czech entrepreneur Karel Drbal began marketing his "Pharaoh’s Shaving Device." This consisted of a model pyramid containing razors; and by aligning the blades carefully along the magnetic fields within, he offered a promise that they would forever remain sharp. Drbal’s work would later be showcased by authors Sheila Ostrander and Lynn Schroeder in their book Psychic Discoveries Behind the Iron Curtain.

Interior view of Alexander Golod's Pyramid (via Atlas Obscura)

As one might imagine, the "Pyramid Power" theory has more than its fair share of critics. Nevertheless, for a time it became a popular avenue of research amongst those looking for renewable sources of energy. Ukrainian defense contractor Alexander Golod decided to put these theories to the test on a grand scale, creating a 150-foot fiberglass pyramid roughly one hour outside of Moscow.

An official website reports a number of striking results achieved through studies using Alexander Golod’s design of "Golden Section Pyramids."

According to the site: exposure in the pyramid boosted the immune system of organisms, it increased the properties of medicines tested (while decreasing associated side effects), radioactive sources exposed to the pyramid energy became less dangerous, while the various bacteria and viruses exposed lost much of their pathogenic strength. Plant seeds which were placed in the pyramid were shown to enjoy a 30-100% increase in yield, while Russia’s military radars detected a prominent "energy column" above the structure — which is “thought to have repaired the Ozone layer in Russia.” A related study exposed crystalline structures to the pyramid energy, before placing them around jails. The reported result was a drastic decrease in violent and criminal behavior inside the institutions.

Alexander Golod's Golden Section Pyramid (photograph by Kolya Pynti)

While the findings at Alexander Golod's Pyramids have been backed by the Russian Academy of Sciences, they have yet to find strong support from the international scientific community, on account of limited or unsatisfactory evidence. So it may be a while yet before hospitals and prisons in the West start taking the form of giant pyramids.

THE LOUVRE PYRAMID
Paris, France

A more familiar pyramid can be seen in the glass structure that fronts the Louvre in Paris. This iconic structure is formed from one large glass and metal pyramid, surrounded by three smaller pyramids that between them form the focal point of the "Cour Napoléon."

Courtyard of the Louvre Museum, with the Pyramid (photograph by Alvesgaspar, via Wikimedia)

Completed in 1989, the largest of these structures, commonly referred to as the Louvre Pyramid (or "Pyramide du Louvre"), now serves as the main entrance to the museum and is one of the city’s more notable landmarks.

The structure’s Chinese-American architect, I.M. Pei, claimed that the design was inspired by a trellis he had seen at the adjacent Jardin des Tuilleries, and that the Louvre Pyramid was in no way related to the monuments of ancient Egypt. On close inspection though, the Louvre Pyramid is an excellent approximation of the contours of the Great Pyramid of Giza — accurate to within a degree.

The Louvre Pyramid raised controversy in the 1980s, following the publication of an official brochure. Twice in the pages of the brochure, it was claimed that the structure was formed from 666 individual panes of glass. That figure was subsequently quoted by numerous newspapers and became a widespread misconception.

Inside the Louvre Pyramid (photograph by Vinceesq, via Wikimedia)

As we’ve already seen, the pyramid form has often been linked to the occult, so just imagine the excitement amongst conspiracy theorists upon learning that the panes of glass in the Louvre Pyramid totaled 666: the biblical "Number of the Beast."

The pyramid was commissioned in 1984 by then President of France François Mitterrand. The leader was said to have been a Masonic sympathizer at the very least, which invited broad speculation as to the motives behind his Parisienne pyramid. After all, the city has a long history of involvement with the freemasons and many still argue that the Craft played a key role in the French Revolution.

In a 1998 book titled, François Mitterrand, Grand Architecte de l'Univers (François Mitterrand, Great Architect of the Universe), Dominique Stezepfandt posited that "the pyramid is dedicated to a power described as the Beast in the Book of Revelation. [...] The entire structure is based on the number 6."

The Louvre and its Pyramid by Night (photograph by Benh Lieu Song, via Wikimedia)

Revelations aside, the notion that the Louvre Pyramid features 666 panes is, in fact, false. An official statement by the Louvre Museum numbers them at 673, and this same figure can be reached using simple mathematics.

The "Number of the Beast" theory did briefly resurface in 2003, when Dan Brown featured the Louvre Pyramid in his best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code. His protagonist Robert Langdon comments that the pyramid “at President Mitterrand's explicit demand, had been constructed of exactly 666 panes of glass.” Whether Dan Brown made an artistic choice to humor the rumor over reality — or, perhaps simply failed to do his homework — is anybody’s guess. 

THE RYUGYONG HOTEL
Pyongyang, North Korea

Dubbed by international media as the "Phantom Pyramid," the "Hotel of Doom,” and, even, the“Worst Building in the History of Mankind,” Pyongyang’s Ryugyong Hotel has become infamous for its long years of dereliction, and though not strictly a pyramid, this pyramid-shaped structure has nevertheless earned its way onto our list.

photograph by eager/Flickr user

The name "Ryugyong" translates to English as "Capital of Willows," an old Korean name used to denote the city of Pyongyang itself. Once completed, the lavish complex was set to contain a wealth of accommodation suites, shops, and offices, topped by five consecutive floors of revolving restaurants.

It was designed to be the tallest hotel anywhere in the world, and with a total of 105 floors across a height of 330 meters, if the project had been completed in time for its 1989-projected opening it would have succeeded. There wouldn’t be another hotel to reach that height until 2009, in fact, with the completion of Dubai’s Rose Tower.

The Ryugyong under construction in 2007 (photograph by pricey/Flickr user) 

Construction of the Ryugyong Hotel began in 1987, right in the heart of North Korea’s capital. The Hermit Nation is famous for its competitive architectural statements — at the time, Pyongyang was already home to the world’s tallest free-standing stone tower (the Juche Tower) as well as the world’s tallest triumphal arch. However, with the Ryugyong they hit a stumbling block.

Construction halted in 1992, likely impacted by the fall of the Soviet Union the previous year; North Korea had strong economic ties with the USSR, and the latter’s collapse had financial repercussions for many of its allies.

For the next 16 years, the Ryugyong would stand watch over the city as a bare concrete skeleton. The failed project became something of a national embarrassment; its likeness was scrapped from postage stamps and airbrushed out of photographs, as people did their best not to notice the hulking, unfinished giant.

The Ryugyong Hotel up close (photograph by Simon Cockerell)

It was only in 2008 that the project was reopened; and there is some subtle poetry in the fact that it was an Egyptian telecommunications company — the Orascom Group — who bought the lease on this vast pyramid. Now, the Ryugyong’s exterior is finally finished in polished glass, and a grand opening for the complex is to be expected some time in the next few years.

While access to the interior of the Ryugyong is — of course — highly restricted, there are a handful of Westerners who’ve been allowed a glimpse inside the unfinished hotel. The following photographs come courtesy of Simon Cockerell at the Koryo Tours group, themselves regular visitors to the DPRK. The images show off the colossal scale of the project, as well as the spectacular views of Pyongyang offered by the Ryugyong’s 100th floor penthouse suites.

Inside one wing of the Ryugyong Hotel (photograph by Simon Cockerell)

Looking out the windows of the Ryugyong (photograph by Simon Cockerell)

The city of Pyongyang, seen from the Ryugyong Hotel (photograph by Simon Cockerell)

NIMA SAND MUSEUM
Nima, Japan

While we're on the subject of Far East pyramids, Japan's Nima Sand Museum is housed inside a series of unique glass and steel structures — adding not one, but a further six modern pyramids to our list.

The Nima Pyramids (photograph by montkd)

Measuring 17 meters across the base and 21 meters high, the main Nima pyramid is a striking vision on the horizon of what was once a sleepy fishing village. The architect responsible for the museum, Nima-born Shin Takamatsu, explained the height of the large pyramid, claiming he wanted it to be visible from his mother’s grave in the village.

The museum was opened in March 1991, celebrating the bizarre properties of the sand found along nearby Kotogahama Beach. It contains rich traces of finely ground quartz, which are said to produce a song-like sound when walked upon.

This is not an unknown phenomenon — similar effects having been noted elsewhere in the world, such as the dunes of the Badain Jaran Desert in China, a beach in Doha, Qatar, and the Singing Sand Dunes of Altyn Emel National Park in Kazakhstan.

photograph by sleepytako/Flickr user

In the Japanese beach town of Nima, however, the effect is put to work in a series of art installations contained within the museum. Aptly housed inside a series of six glass pyramids, the Nima Sand Museum features a range of glass handicrafts such as sundials, clocks, and hourglasses — the latter more commonly known here as "sandglasses."

There are mineral and fossil specimens also on display, as well as a number of interactive exhibitions and workshops. Visitors are invited to learn the secrets of producing sand art, or have a go at making their own glass in a studio building situated next door to the museum.

Perhaps the most famous of all the exhibits at the Nima Sand Museum, though, is the sandglass located inside the tip of the tallest pyramid. The glass measures 5.2 meters from end to end and one meter in diameter, earning it a place in the Guinness Book of Records as the world’s largest sandglass. The sand contained inside weighs roughly a ton. 

The sandglass in the apex of the largest pyramid (photograph by sleepytako/Flickr user)

The glass has been crafted to measure the passing of one year precisely, and the museum holds an annual celebration centred around the turning of the sandglass. Each New Year’s Eve, a team of 108 men and women rotate the glass, chosen according to their signs in the Chinese zodiac. The count starts afresh at midnight, accompanied by the release of 1,000 fireworks over the water.

THE LUXOR HOTEL
Las Vegas, Nevada, United States

The last pyramid on our list takes us back to the United States, and the famous Luxor Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, Nevada. This colossal building is modeled according to the shape of the Great Pyramid of Giza, and at 365 feet in height, it’s now the third tallest pyramidal structure in the world (behind the pyramids of Giza and Khafre in Egypt).

The Luxor seen from the Airport (photograph by Jenny Lee Silver, via WikiMedia)  

The Luxor Hotel was opened to the public in 1993, at the end of an 18-month, $375 million construction project. Divided into 30 stories, the building is operated by MGM Resorts and features 4,400 rooms, four swimming pools, a wedding chapel, restaurants, shops, nightclubs, and a 120,000-square-foot casino.

In addition to the pyramid building itself, the Luxor Hotel and Casino features a replica of the Great Sphinx of Giza — measuring 100 feet tall — as well as a 140-foot Egyptian-style obelisk. Meanwhile, the tip of the pyramid houses what is believed to be the strongest beam of light anywhere in the world: the Luxor Sky Beam.

Aerial view of the Luxor Hotel (via Wikimedia)

The Sky Beam has been in operation since October 1993, using a series of 39 xenon lamps arranged with mirrors to create one narrow, intense beam pointing up at the sky. On a clear night, the beam is visible from as far away as Los Angeles — a distance of 275 miles. Over the years, the light has established a whole new ecosystem, attracting countless numbers of owls, bats, moths, and flying saucers, it would seem.

Since the Luxor was opened, a steady stream of UFO sightings have been reported in the sky above the pyramid. In these videos, for example, a London-based UFO enthusiast has captured what appear to be a large number of flying objects above the pyramid, dodging in and out of the beam of light. Similar phenomena have been reported since the Luxor opened.

While many have explained the sightings as birds or bats feeding on the thousands of moths drawn in by the Sky Beam, Jamie Marfleet of UFO Sightings Daily disagrees.

The Luxor's Sphinx and Sky Beam (photograph by Liam Richardson)

"They are round and move swiftly in and out of the beacon,” he wrote on his site, going on to argue that the "orbs are not bats or birds because they do not have wings and they never flap."

By way of alternate explanation, he added, “the top of the Egyptian pyramids are said to be able to channel energy into a beam and shoot it somewhere distant [...] perhaps the orbs are expecting the same thing from this one."

OTHER MODERN PYRAMIDS

While this guide tackles some of the most iconic — and controversial — modern pyramids around the world, there are plenty more out there. So by way of an epilogue, take a look at these other examples of modern pyramidal architecture: 

Onan's Gold Pyramid House, Illinois, USA (photograph by Jennifer Newport, via Atlas Obscura)

The Pyramide des Ha! Ha!, Saguenay, Canada (photograph by Adqproductions/Wikimedia)

Minnehallen: The Hall of Remembrance, Norway (photograph by astrid/Flickr user)

Walter Pyramid, California, United States (photograph by Summum, via WikiMedia)

Kazan Pyramid, Russia (photograph by Gradmir, via WikiMedia)

The Muttart Conservatories in Edmonton, Canada (photograph by WinterforceMedia, via WikiMedia)

The Summum Pyramid, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States (via Atlas Obscura)

The Sunway Pyramid Shopping Centre, Malaysia (photograph by Cmglee, via WikiMedia)

Buy Online: Lake Monsters of America Map, limited edition screen print, $35

We are thrilled to announce that the popular Lake Monsters of America Map is now available for your home or wunderkammer. This first edition limited run measures 18" x 24" and was hand screen-printed in three colors.

Now you can locate the Goat Man of Lake Worth, the horrible Horse-Headed Alligator, and the hideous Giant Eel Pig, as well as the numerous other strange lake creatures in this original work of cryptid cartography designed by Michelle Enemark. The map features a key that groups the lake monsters by their category, whether it's "nessies" or "webbed hominids," to give an overview of the mysterious monsters that might be dwelling in our lakes.  

The last day for 2013 shipping is this Friday, December 20, so order here to start the New Year off right with a bit of speculative geography. 

Click here to order the Lake Monsters of America Map, $35 in the Atlas Obscura store. 

Cat taxidermy in the cat museum (all photographs by the author)

All dogs go to heaven. But when some cats die, they are enshrined in a museum located in a town named in their honor.

Take a stroll through the humid city center of Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia, and you’ll spot a proud stone monument of purring cats amidst the dilapidated malls and febrile coffee shops. Legend has it that the city of Kuching in Sarawak, Malaysia was flooded with felines along the river bank in the 1830s, hence the literal translation of the town’s name to “cats.”

Cat statues in Kuching

Entrance to the Cat Museum 

Fittingly, the city also hosts one of the world’s most lavish tributes to these animals. Almost 2,000 different artifacts consisting of statues, figurines, paintings, framed pictures of ode-to-my-kitten tattoos, and even cellphone covers can be seen at the Cat Museum, curiously housed in a nondescript corner of a municipal council tower. A giant cat’s mouth engulfs the doorway and welcomes your entrance into cat nirvana.

The Night of a Thousand Cast movie poster in the museum

Inside, a handful of staff members — on this visit: three — take care of a venue that presents a strange, and very obsessive, walk-through of the history of cats. There are pictures of famous dignitaries with their pet cats, life-size replicas of Disney’s Aristocats that visiting children climb over in glee, and hundreds of cat statuettes displayed inside glass cases. 

Cat mummy

The museum starts from as early as 3500 BC, courtesy of a wooden casket housing a mummified Egyptian cat. Keeping in line with the afterlife, the museum has also erected a fake funeral site, complete with tombstone, foliage, and an epitaph paying tribute to a fat cat named "Dick." More modern kitty paeans include coconut husks carved into the shape of a cat’s head, a collection of cat stamps from around the world, and over 50 local Malaysian quotes involving cats that include precious life tropes such as: “like a cat defecating in its hair" (which, apparently, adds emphasis to a situation where someone is anxious because of a sickness).

Coconut cat, carved by Mazelan the "coconut expert"

Fake cat funeral site

The truly hair-raising moments, however, are reserved for the exclusive stuffed samples of the most uncommon cats you’ll ever see. The museum keeps the world’s only mounted specimen of the rarest cat in the world: the Felix Badia, found only in the rainforest of Borneo. Other cats preserved by taxidermy include the Sarawakian leopard cat and the nocturnal flat-headed cat. However, they look, plainly put, horrified to be there.

But aside from providing fodder for nightmares involving vengeful cat specimens, an afternoon nestling up to this free exhibition is an apt way for you to get in touch with the city’s most revered creature. 

Here are more photographs from the most cat-obsessed place in the world:

A taxidermy Russian blue

KUCHING CAT MUSEUM, Kuching, Malaysia

The golf club used by Alan B. Shepard on the moon, and the sock he smuggled it aboard in (courtesy USGA Museum)

Alan B. Shepard wasn't just the first American in space and the fifth person to walk on the moon, he was also the first and only astronaut to play golf outside of our atmosphere. On February 6, 1971 during the Apollo 14 moon mission for which he was serving as commander at the age of 47, he set down two golf balls on the lunar surface. Down below on the home planet, people watched on color TV as he took his shots.

The first ball angled off into a crater. But Shepard, constrained by his hefty spacesuit and gloves, his vision cloistered by the helmet, prepared for the second. This swing was solid and the ball, as he said to the viewing audience, soared for "miles and miles and miles" in the light gravity — one-sixth that of the Earth. 

Alan B. Shepard with the "moon club," and the unfolded club on the right (courtesy USGA Museum)

Shepard had to smuggle the makeshift 6-iron club head and two balls on the Saturn V rocket inside his sock, as extra weight and fun and games on the moon wasn't exactly encouraged by NASA. However, the action in itself was a tangible demonstration of the physical nature of the moon that was readily engaging for the world, and remains one of the most iconic moments of human history on the moon. You might think both the sock and club would have ended up in the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, but the club on display there is actually a replica. The real Shepard club along with that traveling sock are actually held by the United States Golf Association Museum in Far Hills, New Jersey.

Senior Historian Mike Trostel at the USGA Museum explained to Atlas Obscura over the phone that Shepard's idea to play golf on the moon came while giving Bob Hope a tour of the NASA complex, who was swinging an old driver he'd brought with him while hooked up to a moon walker. Shepard saw the entertainer bouncing on his toes with the driver as support and suddenly was struck with the idea that it would be incredible to hit a ball in space if he ever got up there. 

He got that chance on the Apollo 14 mission, a decade after his trip as the second person in space aboard the Freedom 7 in 1961 (he was just beaten out to first by Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin). So Shepard went over to the River Oaks Country Club in Houston and a man named Jack Harden jerry-rigged a retractable instrument that would be used for rock and soil samples into a foldable 6-iron. It was soon unfolded by Shepard out during their lunar explorations. However, the golfing wasn't easy. 

"When he got up there to the moon, he could barely get two hands on the club, the suit was so bulky," Trostel said. But he did manage it, having practiced in secret in his suit back on the surface, and the second shot connected. A usual 6-iron swing goes about 150 yards and has an airtime of about 25 to 30 seconds, but that second shot Shepard took went between 200 to 400 yards (not quite the miles and miles he'd said on television, but it likely felt that way in the moment). 

"Presumably, the ball is still up on the surface," Trostel said. However, the club and sock curiously ended up at the museum through another iconic entertainer — Bing Crosby, a great friend of Shepard, as well as an avid golfer. Crosby got in touch with Shepard and said it would make sense to have the club at the museum, and the astronaut agreed. "We've had it on display ever since," Trostel said. (The sock is kept in storage.)

The USGA Museum is the oldest sports museum in the United States, and while golf is of course central, it's as much about the history of the country. There are clubs from presidents, including Dwight D. Eisenhower who was incredibly influential in making golf popular, clubs that were used on Everest and Antarctica, and other artifacts going back to the 19th century. 

"It's not just the sports, it's relating to how golf is important to American culture," Trostel said. "We want to make sure that we're telling the story of golf not in a vacuum, but relating it to what is happening at a time." And in 1971, what was happening was a trip to the moon.

The "moon club" and sock (courtesy USGA Museum)

The United States Golf Association Museum is located in Far Hills, New Jersey. Click here to find out more about the intriguing artifacts of sports history in the museum. 

OBJECTS OF INTRIGUE is a feature highlighting extraordinary objects from the world's great museums, private collections, historic libraries, and overlooked archives. See more incredible objects here >

In the Photo of the Week feature, we highlight an exceptionally amazing photograph submitted by an Atlas Obscura user.

The ruins in Missouri's Ha Ha Tonka State Park seem to be those of some medieval castle, but are actually the remnants of a family's lost wealth, which is no laughing matter. The eye-popping colors of this panoramic pic were captured by Atlas user ozkmtnbear who had this to say about the photograph:

"Park visitors disappear from view during the creation of a time exposure set of 6 vertical images of Ha Ha Tonka castle, which were then stitched together to create this panorama."

HA HA TONKA CASTLE RUINS, Camdenton, Missouri

Thanks to all of our adventurous users who keep submitting such amazing shots! Want to have your photograph featured? Keep adding your captures to our ever-growing compendium of wondrous places (just click the "Edit This Place" link at the bottom of each place). And watch here each Friday for another Photo of the Week. 

Each year, a towering Yule Goat is constructed for the holidays in Gävle, Sweden. But more often than not, the Gävle Goat — or Gävlebocken as it is called in Sweden — doesn't make it to Christmas. Since it was first built in 1966, it's almost annually been burned, although arson isn't its only misfortune. 

Here's a timeline of the rise and fall of the Gävle Goat by Atlas Obscura's graphic designer Michelle Enemark (scroll right to follow the destruction):

----

So what will be the fate of the Gävle Goat in 2013? We're keeping a close eye on its live web cam, as well as its Twitter and Instagram. Godspeed giant and incredibly flammable Christmas goat!

UPDATE: The Gävle Goat burned on December 20 this year! Here's a screenshot just after the flames. RIP Gävlebocken: 

Click here to read more about the Gävle Goat.

It has been an incredible year in curious places — from lost cities, to a cat island, to the unsettling details of Icelandic magic — and we are looking forward to the year ahead in uncovering more of the world's hidden wonders.

Below are the 20 most astonishing new additions to the Atlas Obscura from 2013:

THE LOST CITY OF HERACLEION
Al Maadeyah, Egypt

via Franck Goddio/Hilti Foundation, photograph by Christoph Gerigk 

This year, a long lost ancient Egyptian city was discovered in the depths off the coast of Alexandria:

It was only a legend. Appearing in a few rare inscriptions and ancient texts, the city of Thonis-Heracleion was not something anyone expected to find, and no one was looking for it. So it was something of a shock when French archaeologist Franck Goddio, looking for 18th century French warships, saw a colossal face emerge from the watery shadows.
Read more >

BLACK AND BLUE LAGOON OF BUXTON
Derbyshire, England

photograph by Simon Harrod

This "lagoon" is actually a toxic soup filled with cars, carcasses, and trash. But it was still so beautiful that people couldn't resist going for a swim, so the town dyed it black:

In June 2013, the council took the drastic measure of pouring black dye into the water to lessen its appeal. So far the plan seems to be working — according to locals, disappointed weekend road trippers have been turning back when they spot the newly inky lagoon.
Read more>

TASHIROJIMA - CAT ISLAND
Ishinomaki, Japan

photograph by Fubirai

On the island of Tashirojima in Japan, the cats outnumber people, and the people like it that way:

Cats have long been thought by the locals to represent luck and good fortune, and doubly so if you feed and care for them. Thus, the cats are treated like kings, and although most are feral because keeping them as "pets" is generally considered inappropriate, they are well-fed and well-cared-for. Read more >

SHANTY TOWN AT EMOYA ESTATES
Bloemfontein, South Africa

via emoya.co

A shanty town-themed luxury hotel in South Africa that should be too outrageous to be true provides the bohemian chic of extreme poverty... without all the hardship and hunger:

The lodgings are far from uncomfortable. Each reinforced shanty features fully-furnished interiors and the website is proud to proclaim, "This is the only Shanty Town in the world equipped with under-floor heating and wireless internet access!" A poverty theme park of sorts. Read more >

ATLANTIC OCEAN ROAD
Averøy, Norway

photograph by wallpaperswa 

The Atlantic Ocean Road is a serpentine highway that twists and turns over the treacherous Norwegian Sea:

Driving along the Atlantic Road is like teetering on the edge of the sea. The road's roller coaster-feel, curvy bridges, and phenomenal views have made it a favorite of road trippers and motorcyclists. Read more >

HONGHE HANI RICE TERRACES
Honghe, China

photograph by Jialiang Gao

A complex and beautiful system of rice terraces covers a million acres over the Ailao Mountains in China. This year they were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List, so hopefully the painting-like landscape will be with us for years to come:

The 1,200-year-old elaborate red rice terraces were created to bring water down from the forests to allow for farming on the slopes. The system of terraces stretches over four counties — Yuanyang, Honghe, Jinpin, and Lvchun — although the main area is in Yuanyang. Read more >

SMITH MANSION
Cody, Wyoming

via smithmansion.org

One man's construction obsession spawned this psychedelic log home in Wyoming:

Wyoming's dizzying Smith Mansion is rumored to be built over a mine shaft or by the hands of a madman or as a perverse joke, but the truth is that it is simply the work of a man who could not stop building. Read more >

AKODESSEWA FETISH MARKET
Lomé, Togo

photograph by Dominik Schwarz

This Togo market is the Voodoo superstore of the world:

Togo's capital city of Lomé is the birthplace of the largest Voodoo market in the world — a kind of super supply store for fetishes, charms, and anything else one might need for a ritual. The Akodessewa Fetish Market, or Marché des Féticheurs, is a place where you can find anything from leopard heads and human skulls to Voodoo priests who bless and create fetishes or predict the future and make medicines to heal whatever ails you. Read more >

LUKLA AIRPORT
Chaurikharka, Nepal

photograph by canucksfan604/Flickr user

This Nepal airport is the jumping-off point for a climb to Mount Everest, but it's a hard start as it's also the most dangerous airport in the world: 

There is no safety net at Lukla Airport. The 1500-foot runway abruptly drops off into a river valley below, and if you don't take off successfully your plane will hurtle to a violent end thousands of feet up in the Himalayas. Read more >

PLUTO'S GATE
Denizli Merkez, Turkey

Inscription to the gods of the underworld at Pluto's Gate (photograph by Francesco D'Andria/Discovery News)

This long lost legendary gate to hell in Turkey was rediscovered this year: 

Tourists to the portal to the underworld were able to buy small birds or other animals (the sale of which supported the temple) and test out the toxic air that blew out of the mysterious cavern, which was connected to a temple with a pool. Only the priests, high and hallucinating on the fumes, could stand on the steps by the opening to hell, and would sometimes lead sacrificial bulls inside, only to pull out their dead bodies dramatically.
Read more >

PROJECT HARP SPACE GUN
Barbados

photograph by LesPaulSupreme/Flickr user

This relic of a giant gun barrel in Barbados once was part of a project to shoot outer space with science: 

In lay terms, the project was established to create a cartoonishly large gun to shoot things into space. The sole fruit of this partnership, a massive toppled gun barrel, still remains on the Barbados test site. Designed by mad ballistic engineer Gerald Bull, the gun itself was originally built from a 50-caliber naval cannon, like what might be seen on a battleship, and was later doubled to 100 caliber, making the gun too big for effective military application, but seemingly perfect for satellite delivery. Read more >

BULLET BABA SHRINE
Bandai, India

photograph by Sentiments777/Wikimedia

Liquor and flowers mark this holy site for Indian motorcycle riders: 

On his way from Pali to Chotila, Om Singh Rathore crashed his motorcycle into a tree, allegedly while driving drunk. According to local legend, after the police hauled the bike away to the station, it was mysteriously discovered back at the site of the accident the next morning. Thinking this was a prank, the police took the bike, emptied the gas tank, and chained it up. The very next day the chains were found broken and the bike was once again found at the site of the accident. Read more >

THE MUSEUM OF ICELANDIC SORCERY & WITCHCRAFT 
Hólmavík, Iceland

Necropants (photograph by Bernard McManus)

Staves, storm-calling, and necropants, are all in one Icelandic witchcraft museum:

The collection features a number of artfully displayed artifacts and displays such as rune-carved pieces of wood, animal skulls, and a number of Icelandic magical staves. However the most shocking and remarkable piece is easily the so-called "necropants" which is the dried skin of a man from the waist down. These horrifying leggings were used in a spell that would supposedly bring the caster more money. Read more >

GOATS OF THE CINGINO DAM
Noasca, Italy

photograph by brunvit on Panaramio

This Italian dam is covered in salt-hungry goats who manage to scale its almost vertical face:

On the otherwise unremarkable Cingino Dam in the midst of Italy's Gran Paradiso National Park, visitors can see a number of hopping, moving specks that are actually goats climbing along the impossibly small brick outcroppings in the dam wall. Read more >

KOCHIA HILL
Hitachinaka, Japan

photograph by ms_gracias/Flickr user

Every autumn, this hillside in Japan is stunningly ablaze with red summer cypress:

The scrubby little kochia plants, otherwise known as summer cypress, are not much to look at for most of the year, but at the end of the wet season they take on an extraordinary brilliant red color, lending them the name "burning bush." Read more >

MENDENHALL ICE CAVES
Juneau, Alaska

photograph by AER Wilmington DE

In the Mendenhall Ice Caves in Alaska, water runs over rocks under blue ceilings inside a partially hollow glacier: 

The Ice Caves are inside the glacier, accessible only to those willing to kayak to, and then ice climb over the glacier. However, the glacier is retreating increasingly fast as global warming heats the oceans and temperatures rise. Read more >

THE LINKED HEADSTONES OF HET OUDE KERKHOF
Roermond, The Netherlands

photograph by Frank Janssen

These two gravestones clasp hands over a religious boundary in the Netherlands:

Despite the religious divide of the lives and cemeteries, the gravestones of Colonel J.C.P.H. of Aeffderson and noblewoman J.W.C. Van Gorkum clasp hands across the divide. In the 19th century, the Dutch lived with Pillarisation, a policy which seperated public establishments by religious and political affiliations. Yet Colonel Aeffderson was a Protestant, and Van Gorkum was a Catholic. Read more >

WISTERIA TUNNEL
Yahatahigashi Ward, Japan

photograph by Binarycse/Flickr user

At the Kawachi Fuji Gardens in Kitakyushu, Japan, is a pastel-colored passageway of wisteria flowers:

Make sure to visit in late April or Early May, during the "Fuji Matsuri," or "Wisteria Festival," when the magical tunnel is in full bloom. Arrive at any other time of year, and its appearance will be a disheartening mass of lifeless, twisted branches. Read more >

UTA FLIGHT 772 MEMORIAL
Nguigmi, Niger 

via Aviation Sans Frontières & Sahara Conservation Fund

The world's most remote memorial is in the Niger desert, and remembers the victims of the UTA Flight 772 disaster: 

Due to the remote resting place of the wreck, the wreckage is still scattered around the area, a glaring but out-of-sight reminder of the tragedy that happened there. After 18 years of it being nothing but a desert filled with debris, the families of the victims came together and decided to build a monument in one of the most remote places on the globe.
Read more >

SUNKEN CEMETERY
Municipality of Concepcion, Philippines

photograph by Shubert Cienica 

This cemetery and the town it served in the Philippines sinks beneath the sea during the volcanic birth of Mt. Vulcan:

There are no flowers or gravestones to mark the resting places of the lost citizens of Camiguin — only a giant cross rising up out of the water to mark where this place of rest once was. Read more >

If you walked into the gallery of plant specimens at Harvard's Natural History Museum, you might find the little flowers, fruits, and other sprigs of green to be rather dull in their orderly glass cases. However, not everything is as it appears.

photograph by Michelle Enemark

The over 4,000 plant models held by the museum are each handcrafted from glass, with such a detail of color and shape that it's hard to believe they came from human hands. The glass flowers were once called the "Sistine Chapel of the glass world" by Curatorial Associate Susan Rossi-Wilcox. Each was made between 1887 and 1936 by Leopold and Rudolph Blaschka, a father-son team based in Hosterwitz near Dresden in Germany.

photograph by Michelle Enemark

They actually started with glass marine invertebrates for the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard before being commissioned for the plants. Professor George Lincoln Goodale — founder of Harvard's Botanical Museum — was unhappy with the mediocre models made from wax and papier mâché and wanted something more like the real thing for study. The results show not just the detailed structure of lilies, irises, roses, and other botanicals, but also the processes of pollination and even flora diseases. Many were handblown, others were shaped from heated glass.

photograph by Michelle Enemark

photograph by Michelle Enemark

photograph by Michelle Enemark

They've suffered some wear — including shattering from sonic booms and other small cracks from careless visitors running into cases — and underwent a recent restoration. Yet even decades after their creation they still retain their illusion of organic life. 

GLASS FLOWERS AT HARVARD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Curious Facts of the Week: Helping you build your cocktail party conversation repertoire with a new strange fact every week, and an amazing place to explore its story. See all the Curious Facts here>

photograph by firennice/Flickr user

No, this is not Narnia's icy home of the White Witch, although the lover of endless winter from C. S. Lewis' world would likely have adored this frozen landscape. Instead it is the work of artist Brent Christensen who annually constructs these temporary palaces of ice.

Ice Castles, as the project is called, started with Christensen experimenting with constructing an explorable ice structure in his Utah backyard for his kids. His experiments with building geological-like forms that drape like stalactites and stalagmites in caves and passageways evolved into more ambitious constructions. This year he is unveiling three new Ice Castles in Breckenridge, Colorado; Lincoln, New Hampshire; and Midway, Utah. 

Here's a description of the construction of an Ice Castle on the project's site: "We start by 'growing' more than 5,000 icicles each day that we harvest and sculpt together. Newly placed icicles are then drenched in freezing water. The blend of icicle placement, changing temperatures, water volume, and wind result in an astonishing variety of ice formations."

Not exactly the most water conservation conscious project, but the results are far more stunning, organic, and otherworldly than the usual block-based ice castles. This process is continued for weeks into a complicated layering of towers stretching up to 25 feet, hidden corridors, and arches where spikes of ice loom down, all with LED lights embedded to give a glow at night. The lifespan of the Ice Castles is largely dependent on the weather.

Here's where you can visit this year, and check the Ice Castles site for more details on times and ticketing:

Breckenridge, Colorado :: Opening December 26

Lincoln, New Hampshire :: Opening December 27

Midway, Utah :: Opening December 27

photograph by starfive/Flickr user

photograph by starfive/Flickr user

photograph by Photo Dean

photograph by firennice/Flickr user

photograph by jpellgen/Flickr user

photograph by Mary J.I.

photograph by Mary J.I.

photograph by jpellgen/Flickr user

photograph by Jenni Konrad

photograph by firennice/Flickr user

photograph by Photo Dean/Flickr user

 Find more astounding ice castles on the Atlas Obscura >

Many of the ancient pagan observances during midwinter have been transformed or forgotten by our modern society. If you look into the origins of traditions practiced around Christmas today, you might be surprised to discover that the Christmas pastimes you know so well are themselves teeming with the macabre and strange.

However, in some countries where people have held fast to these ancient traditions, Christmas brings with it unthinkable terrors. For some, Christmas is a season filled with supernatural goings-on, ghosts, witches, magic, and especially monsters.

KRAMPUS

all illustrations by Dylan Thuras

Santa's European counterpart and earliest incarnation — Saint Nicholas — brings something other than just presents to your house. He brings along a demonic sidekick, Krampus. While the good children get gifts from Saint Nicholas, Krampus is given leave to mercilessly beat the naughty ones, shove them into his sack, and carry them promptly to Hell.  

MARI LWYD - THE CHRISTMAS ZOMBIE HORSE

This macabre skeleton mare of Welsh tradition rises from the dead and wanders the streets with her attendants, who are also fresh from the grave, to remind the living of their existence. Mary Lwyd has only one goal in mind — to get into your house. To keep the zombie horse out, you must engage in a battle of wits… in rhyme no less, usually on New Year's Eve, where the undead mare is represented by a puppeteer parading a horse skull on a pole draped in white cloth. 

LA BEFANA AND BABOUSHKA 

In Italy, Russia, and parts of Eastern Europe, we encounter witches rooted in the fairy tale figure of Mother Holle who doles out punishments for the lazy, and riches for the hard working. In Italy she is known as La Befana and in Russia, Baboushka. Each January 6, she packs up and sets off on a broomstick to join the three kings who are also seeking the Christ Child. She searches every house and if she finds a child there, she leaves cookies and gifts behind. 

PERCHTA 

On New Year's Eve, Perchta roams the earth rewarding those who are hard working and generous, and punishing the idle and greedy. Her punishment of choice involves slashing open your stomach so she may violently rip out your intestines, which are then replaced by straw, rocks, and garbage. The tradition of having goose for Christmas is sometimes linked to witches like Perchta, who is often depicted as having a goose foot, along with the belief that goose fat enabled witches to fly.

STRAGGELE 

In many places, such as Switzerland, Perchta rides with a throng of demonic-looking helpers — known as Straggele— who love to partake of the feast offerings left out for them on Christmas by people hoping for Perchta’s blessings of wealth and health in the new year. In some places, Straggele get to dole out the punishments themselves and aren’t terribly discerning as they rob all bad children and tear them to pieces in the air.

THE TOMTEN

A creature from Scandinavian folklore who bears a resemblance to a gnome and lives among the dead inside burial mounds, the Tomten acts as a caretaker, protector, and helper of the household, that is if you don't anger him. The Tomten has quite the temper and is known for driving people insane with his tricks or biting them. The bites — being poisonous — typically lead to death. You would be well advised to leave a gift of food out on Christmas Eve for this fellow. 

BELSNICKEL 

In some German and Pennsylvannia Dutch communities, Belsnickel shows up a couple weeks before Christmas, filthy and dressed in rags and furs to beat the children who have misbehaved. As an 1872 Philadelphia newspaper recounted: ”Mr. Belsnickel [makes] his personal appearance dressed in skins or old clothes, his face black, a bell, a whip, and a pocket full of cakes or nuts; and either the cakes or the whip are bestowed upon those around…” Back in the 19th century it was popular for rowdy revelers to go "Belsnicking" and get drunk, vandalize the city, and play pranks. 

PERE FOUETTARD

Père Fouettard made his first appearance in 1150, when he and his wife lured a trio of young boys into their butcher shop so they could rob them. Fouettard slit their throats and butchered the children, placing their remains in a barrel. When Saint Nicholas discovered the crime, he resurrected the boys and punished Fouettard by forcing the butcher into his eternal service. Now, this villain appears alongside Saint Nicholas and dispenses coal and floggings to those who deserve them. 

GRYLA

One of Iceland’s most renowned figures associated with Christmas — Gryla— is a giant troll who is in a perpetual bad mood due to her insatiable hunger… for children. Each Christmas, Gryla comes down from her mountain dwelling to hunt for naughty children. She places them in a sack and drags them back to her cave where she boils them alive for her favorite stew. Oh, and she has thirteen sons —the Yule Lads. 

THE YULE LADS

The thirteen sons of Gryla, the Yule Lads are each known for a particular habit or characteristic, much like the Disney version of Snow White's seven dwarves. Most of them are depicted as mischievous pranksters and petty criminals. Icelandic children are visited each night on the thirteen days leading up to Christmas by a different Yule Lad, including such charmers as:

"Sheep Cote Clog," a peg-legged sheep fancier; "Gully Hawk" who hides out in ditches or gullies and waits for an opportune moment to run into the cow shed and lick the foam off the milk in the milking buckets; "Stubby" whose name denotes his stature as he is unusually short; "Spoon Licker," a licker and thief of spoons; "Pot Scraper" who is a petty thief of leftovers; "Bowl Licker" who hides under your bed and waits for you to absentmindedly put down your bowl so he can steal and yes, lick it; "Door Slammer" who slams doors all night; "Skyr Gobbler" who eats "skyr" yogurt; "Sausage Swiper" who steals sausage; "Window Peeper" who watches you from the windows; "Doorway Sniffer" who uses his incredibly large nose to sniff through doors to find bread; "Meat Hook" who always brings a hook along with him so he can steal meat; and "Candle Stealer" who follows children around so he can steal their candles, leaving them in the dark.

THE YULE CAT

The pet of both Gryla and The Yule Lads, the Yule Cat’s prey consists of both children and adults. Unlike the other Christmas monsters, this cat does not care about your misdeeds during the year. The only insurance against being torn apart and eaten by this giant feline is receiving an article of new clothing for Christmas. Shop wisely. 

Illustrations by Dylan Thuras. 

Find more about the horrors of Christmas on Sarah Elizabeth Troop's blog: A Scary Little Christmas.

photograph by Shin K/Flickr user

As winter has taken its hold and much of nature is dormant, we look ahead to the flowers of spring. Many places have their stunning flora, but these flower fields are absolutely dreamlike in their natural beauty.

Below are five of the most otherworldly flower fields from around the world that bloom into unexpected landscapes for a short time each year. 

ANTELOPE VALLEY POPPY RESERVE
Los Angeles County, California, United States

photograph by tomspixels/Flickr user

At the end of winter, the hills of the Antelope Valley California Poppy Reserve bloom into cascades of orange. The over 1,780-acre site is protected as a reserve by the state of California, and this includes prohibiting taking any floral souvenirs to mar the natural phenomenon (or test out their medicinal properties).  But you'd be forgiven for wanting to fall asleep among them like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz. 

photograph by Rennett Stowe

photograph by Anita Ritenour

photograph via travelingCA

photograph via travelingCA

photograph by Elizabeth Herndon

photograph by Eve of Discovery/Flickr user

photograph by Rennett Stowe

photograph by Elizabeth Haslam

photograph via California State Parks

LUOPING COUNTY
Yunnan, China

photograph by Hui Long

In spring in Luoping County in Yunnan, China, the fields around the mountains are transformed into sprawls of vivid yellow. The gold canola flowers suddenly turn the quiet area into a destination, with busloads of visitors arriving to glimpse the temporary stunning colors. You can also find beekeepers in tents taking advantage of the honey-makers, who are also visiting for the flowers. 

photograph by Fanghong/Wikimedia

photograph by k lichstig/Flickr user

photograph by Edwin Cheng

photograph by Hoang Giang Hai

CARLSBAD FLOWER FIELDS
Carlsbad, California, United States

photograph by Bill Gracey

Down in Southern California each spring, about 50 acres of hillside are suddenly ablaze in flowers at the Carlsbad Ranch. Several different varieties of flowers are grown in parallel lines to create a living rainbow of color. The area just outside of San Diego is part of a major commercial flower center, and the flower fields are just a part of the flower powered economy. 

photograph by Kevin Nguyen-Tu

photograph by v_silvestri/Flickr user

photograph by Kevin Nguyen-Tu

photograph by Kwong Yee Cheng

photograph by San Diego Shooter

photograph by Kevin Nguyen-Tu

photograph by Bisayan lady/Flickr user

photograph by Ewen Roberts

photograph by Ewen Roberts

photograph by Kevin Nguyen-Tu

HITACHI SEASIDE PARK
Hitachinaka, Japan

photograph by kobaken/Flickr user

We're cheating a little here, as what makes Hitachi Seaside Park stunning is not just the hundreds of varieties of flowers — including blue flowers with transparent petals — but the summer cypress as well. At the end of the wet season the usually green herb turns a blazing red. This along with a looming ferris wheel makes the Japanese public park into something out of a feverish fantasy. 

photograph by kajari/Flickr user

photograph by Shin K/Flickr user

photograph by Shin K/Flickr user

photograph by Shin K/Flickr user

photograph by Shin K/Flickr user

photograph by Les Taylor

photograph by Kyah C/Flickr user

HALLERBOS
Halle, Belgium

photograph by Christophe Couckuyt

The Hallerbos — also known as the Blue Forest — morphs for a brief time in spring into an otherworldly landscape. Millions of bluebells bloom all around on the Belgian forest floor beneath the slender beech trees. While these "bluebell woods" can be found around Europe in the oldest forests, this shaded azure carpet of flowers near Brussels is one of the most beautiful. 

photograph by Paul-Henri S.

photograph by Vincent Brassinne

photograph by Paul-Henri S.

photograph by Vincent Brassinne

photograph by cormaplus/Flickr user

photograph by Vincent Brassinne

The New York Obscura Society is hitting the road! The first in a brand new series of monthly excursions is kicking off in January 2014 with a full-day roundtrip excursion to Philadelphia.

Join us in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, on the morning of Saturday, January 11, as we prepare to leave New York City behind and head south to explore the City of Brotherly Love. From learning about the science behind the sideshow in America's greatest medical museum to wandering the historic corridors of a former high-security prison, we'll be sharing several of our very favorite Philadelphia locations and hopefully discovering new wonders along the way.

Hyrtl Skull Collection at the Mütter Medical Museum (photograph by John Dodges)

Inside the walls of Eastern State Penitentiary (photograph by Adam Jones)

This is only the first in a full year of Atlas Obscura road trips, so stay tuned to our events page and get ready to buckle up!

Purchase tickets for Atlas Obscura Road Trip: Philadelphia

The "Fisk Mummy" in the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis (all photographs by the author unless indicated)

In 1848, Almond Fisk patented a metal coffin he believed would revolutionize death. One problem: some people thought the burial case with its human contours was creepy as hell.

The "Fisk Airtight Coffin of Cast or Raised Metal" — also known as the "Fisk Mummy" — was designed to preserve the corpse in a cast-iron mummy-shaped case for travel or other delayed interment, and also to keep from spreading disease as outbreaks of yellow fever and cholera were being blamed on overcrowded cemeteries. This was especially true in the United States where Fisk was born, where formerly contained cities like New York had spilled beyond their bounds many times, including in their cemeteries where churchyards were packed to the topsoil, raising the cemetery ground several feet above the surrounding sidewalk. But with a metal sarcophagus, this grotesque collapsing of the flesh into decay could be contained, even slowed. 

via United States Patent Office

As Fisk wrote in his 1848 patent: "From a coffin of this description the air may be exhausted so completely as entirely to prevent the decay of the contained body on principles well understood; or, if preferred, the coffin may be filled with any gas or fluid having the property of preventing putrefaction. " 

The molded coffin, in fitting with elaborate Victorian mourning, was heavily decorated with symbolism like angels, thistles, roses, and on one found in an unmarked grave in Missouri in 2006, oak leaves, acorns, and berries. The coffin itself was shaped like a shrouded corpse, the edges of the draping delicately molded. And at the head was perhaps the most unsettling feature: a little window to view the face of the dead. 

Ad for the Fisk burial cases (via northwestern.edu)

As Harold Schechter cites in his book The Whole Death Catalog: A Lively Guide to the Bitter End, in one ad for the Fisk coffin, it boasted that this window allowed mourners "to behold again the features of the departed." Unfortunately for Fisk, people found it all a little unsettling, especially the uncanny, otherworldliness of the metal case like some Industrial Age warping of Ancient Egypt. As Schechter writes, a later ad for a different version stated that it aimed to cut back on "the disagreeable sensation produced by the coffin on many minds," or basically to make it less creepy. 

Fisk case in the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis

The coffins were crazy expensive for the time — going for between $7 and $40 when a standard wood box would only cost a couple of bucks. But their price tag and upsetting countenance weren't the greatest misfortunes for Fisk's dreams of modern entombment. In 1849, only a year after his patent, his factory on Long Island in New York burned to the ground and he suffered injuries which would kill him the following year. (It's hard to find a concrete report, but one has to assume he was placed in a metal casket of the utmost splendor.) Yet while his New York City showroom went with him, the coffins continued on with different manufacturers, although not without their continued misfortune with public relations. 

Fisk case in the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis

Detail of the metal "shroud"

The airtight nature of the coffin could have had an unintended side effect: explosion. As the body breaks down and releases its "leakage," it needs some, for lack of a better expression, breathing room. In 1858, the Chicago Press ran a sensational story entitled "Explosion of a Metallic Coffin" that claimed one of Fisk's blew open, corpse and all.

However, in a letter to the New York Times a representative of Raymond & Co. — which was then manufacturing the Fisk coffins — rebuffed these accusations, stating they hadn't even sold to people in Chicago: "We could give many instances from among the many thousands of cases made and sold by us for the last six years, that have been submitted to the severest tests in the transportation of bodies, not only to and from distant parts of our country, but to Europe and the West Indies. Perhaps no more notable occasion or severe test was ever applied than in the case of the transportation of the remains of the Hon. Henry Clay from Washington, during the hottest weather in July, with many delays to their final resting places in Kentucky, which was done to the entire satisfaction of the Senate Committee who had the matter in charge."

The face plate, hinged over the window

The production of the Fisk mummies ended in 1853 or 1860 (reports vary). Being that most that were made remain underground, they're incredibly rare to see, but those that are unearthed tend to become museum pieces while the bones (sometimes well-preserved, just as Almond Fisk promised) are reinterred without their fancy coffins. One that held a man who died in 1854 was accidentally found when a plow burst into a burial vault constructed with 2,000 handmade bricks in Tennessee. It's now on display in the Pink Palace Museum in Memphis — appropriately, a city a bit obsessed with its Egyptian namesake with their own giant pyramid downtown — in a rather eerie dark room by itself where it rests on a pile of bricks (it's unclear if these are the same masonry from the burial vault).

You can also find Fisk mummies on display at the Museum of Appalachia in Clinton, Tennessee; the Herr Funeral Home Memorial Museum in Collinsville, Illinois; the Canton Historical Museum in Collinsville, Connecticut; and one in a grand windowed funeral carriage at the Rural Life Museum in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And of course, they still rest quietly in crypts and catacombs — 19th century Victorians encased in their own visions of a better afterlife.

Morbid Mondays highlight macabre stories from around the world and through time, indulging in our morbid curiosity for stories from history's darkest corners. Read more Morbid Mondays>

Join us on Twitter and follow our #morbidmonday hashtag, for new odd and macabre themes: Atlas Obscura on Twitter 

Climbing ever so sluggishly along the trees of Central and South America, it's not surprising sloths gather a bit of algae on their sedentary bodies.What is unexpected is that the algae isn't just a freeloader taking advantage of one of the slowest animals in the world, it also provides a disguise.

Two sloths, the one on the right appearing to have algae on its head
(photograph by Jenny Jozwiak)

With their light brown fur, the green of the algae contributes to a camouflage that helps them hide among the bark and leaves of the trees they call home — and occasionally their final resting places as some sloths keep their strong clawed grip on the branches even after death. The combination of being so slow, as well as nocturnal, leaves them incredibly vulnerable as easy prey in the daylight hours, so the algae makes it a little harder to glimpse their furry forms nestled in the trees. Their coarse, long fur is actually a small habitat for a whole range of creatures, from insects to fungi. 

Sloth in Central America with algae on its arm (photograph by Jerry Kirkhart)

As an added bonus, they can even lick the algae for a quick snack. A 2010 study published in BMC Evolutionary Biology showed that this algae was curiously passed from mother sloths to their young at just a few weeks old. Unfortunately, the success of the symbiotic relationship hasn't been enough to protect the sloths in the rapidly disappearing rainforests, so organizations like the Sloth Captive Husbandry Center in Rainier, Oregon, and the Aviarios del Caribe sloth sanctuary in Cahuita, Costa Rica, are working to protect the creatures, and, we presume, their algae, too. 

AVIARIOS DEL CARIBE - THE SLOTH SANCTUARY, Cahuita, Costa Rica

SLOTH CAPTIVE HUSBANDRY CENTER, Rainier, Oregon

Curious Facts of the Week: Helping you build your cocktail party conversation repertoire with a new strange fact every week, and an amazing place to explore its story. See all the Curious Facts here>

photograph by Carlos Adampol

Happy New Year's Eve! Ready to burn your effigy?

In Ecuador at the stroke of midnight, people around the country bring effigies of politicians, pop culture figures, and other icons of the year to torch in the streets. This tradition of burning the “año viejo” ("old year") is symbolic of cleansing the bad from the previous 12 months before the new year commences. If you're going for extra credit, you can even jump the flames 12 times for each month, although you risk joining the effigy yourself in the fire. 

The tradition of the effigy burning is said to go back to an 1895 yellow fever epidemic that hit Guayaquil especially hard. That year people packed coffins with the clothes of the dead and set them in flames, the act being both a symbol as well as a purification rite. Now the figures that are burned are much more lighthearted and elaborate, with some towering effigies vividly painted and paraded through the city, while some families make due with sort of scarecrows stuffed with newspaper and covered with a mask purchased from one of the many street vendors. Before the evening's arson, men will dress as the "widows" of the effigies and beg for money in mourning in the streets. 

Below are some photographs from the “año viejo” festivities, where you'll see that fictional characters are as popular as political. Although just what incinerating X-Men's Gambit or Futurama's Bender will do to clear the bad vibes of the year isn't clear, but it does look like a cathartic way to end the year.

via Prefectura de la Provincia del Guayas

via Agencia de Noticias ANDES

photograph by Michael Zole

photograph by Lowfill Tarmak

photograph by po5i/Flickr user

via Agencia de Noticias ANDES

photograph by Michael Zole

via Agencia de Noticias ANDES

photograph by Francisco Laso

photograph by Michael Zole

via Agencia de Noticias ANDES

photograph by Esteban Mendieta Jara

via Agencia de Noticias ANDES

photograph by Michael Zole

photograph by Lowfill Tarmak

photograph by Eduardo Ochoa

photograph by Carlos Adampol

via Prefectura de la Provincia del Guayas

photograph by Eduardo Ochoa

photograph by Bill Herndon

Elizabeth Harper writes about saint relics at All the Saints You Should Know. Recently she gave a talk on Parisian relics at the Morbid Anatomy Library in Brooklyn, and here continues her exploration of the holy dead in Paris.

For many visitors, Paris is the City of Light — more hearts and flowers than skulls and graveyards. However, there’s a darker side to the city, one that makes Paris one of my favorite cities for saints’ relics.

The understated, unadvertised nature of these places is part of what makes them fun. Paris isn’t like Naples or Prague where skeletons practically hang out at the sidewalk cafés and you can appreciate them by merely passing by. Here there’s a sense of discovery in seeking out relics and learning their history. Relics allow you to glimpse into Paris the Roman city, Paris the medieval city, and Paris the revolutionary city. Sometimes they even show you why Paris is the way it is today. Here's a short guide to Paris as a reliquary. 

The bones of Ursula and her friends (photograph by Ricardo Zappala)

One of my favorite relics is at the Church of Saint-Severin, where there’s a dusty glass case of bones in one corner. These are the bones of St. Ursula and her companions. There’s no historical evidence to support Ursula’s existence (and her feast day was removed from the Catholic calendar in 1969), but according to legend, the Huns martyred her and her ladies-in-waiting around 383 while they were touring European holy sites.

How many ladies-in-waiting depends on who you ask. It used to top out at eleven. However in 922, the Bishop of Cologne translated a Latin abbreviation differently and “11 virgin-martyrs” became “11,000 virgins," which made for a much better story. It stuck and now, according to church records, there are 30 tons of bones displayed all over the world that purport to belong these women. The majority of them rest in St. Ursula’s Basilica in Cologne.

Courtyard at Saint-Severin (photograph by Groume/Flickr user)

If you want to switch gears and see a little piece of medical history, you’re in the right neighborhood — the Museum of the History of Medicine and the Musée Dupuytren are just down the block. But you can start by taking a trip out to the courtyard of Saint-Severin. This is where the first gallstone operation took place in 1474. The story becomes a little creepier when you know that the courtyard used to be a mass grave and the arcaded gallery was a charnier (a place to store bones when the mass grave was full). The unlucky patient was a prisoner condemned to death, but since the operation was successful, he gained his freedom (although he probably doubted his odds when he saw the macabre “operating room”).

Relics of St. Helena in the Church of Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

Another one of my favorite relics manages to go even farther back in history. At the Church of Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles, you can see the remains of the Roman Empress St. Helena. The custodian who let me into the tiny basement crypt in Les Halles told me that very few of the church’s parishioners know the story behind this relic, let alone tourists.

In 840, A monk named Theogisus stole a portion of Helena’s body from her tomb in Rome and brought it back to his monastery in Hautvillers. Interestingly, when the theft was discovered, the pope didn’t order the return of Helena to Rome. The belief at the time was if a saint’s relic was stolen, the saint was consenting to the relocation, otherwise it would have miraculously stopped the theft. So Helena stayed in Hautvillers until the French Revolution when secular revolutionaries took to destroying monasteries and burning the relics. The monastery in Hautvillers was destroyed but the cellarer — Dom Grossard — hid the relics until they could be safely relocated to Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles in the mid 1800s. They’ve been there ever since.

Statue of Mary Magdalene in La Madeleine (photograph by Miles Berry)

These days, as the custodian pointed out to me, Helena’s shrine is largely forgotten. It’s actually kept up by a group from the Russian Orthodox church even though Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles is Roman Catholic. These days the Russian immigrant community has become one of the biggest proponents for saints’ relics in Paris. The Russian Orthodox also have the rib of St. Alexander Nevsky at the cathedral named for him near the Arc de Triomphe. It was in fact a Russian priest who pointed out to me that there were relics of St. Mary Magdalene at La Madeline, a well-known church I had visited on several occasions without noticing these relics.

Sacre Couer crypt (photograph by David Riley)

Next we’ll head to Montmarte all the way up the hill to Sacre Coeur, or the “basilica of the ridiculous,” as Émile Zola called it. Feel free to skip the bland interior and head straight down to the crypt. (Although I must tell you that contrary to what some guidebooks say, the “sacred heart of Jesus Christ” is NOT down there.) However, this is where you can learn about the patron saint of Paris — St. Denis — who was beheaded by druids on this very hilltop. That alone is enough to make him a martyr, but ever the over-achiever, St. Denis picked up his severed head and gave a sermon as he walked all the way to the site of the royal necropolis that now bears his name. If you take a trip up to St. Denis’ Basilica, you can see all kinds of different images of the decapitated saint as well as the remainder of his relics and his tomb.

St. Denis’ Cathedral was actually begun by the patroness of Paris, St. Genevieve, who purchased the land and had a shrine built over Denis’ tomb. However, her relics weren’t half as lucky as St. Helena’s were when the torch-happy revolutionaries paid her a visit. The majority of her relics were burnt at the Place de Grève, (now the Hôtel de Ville). But you can still see a tiny fragment of her bone and the rock her coffin rested on at St. Étienne-du-Mont.

The rock where St. Genevieve's tomb once rested preserved as its own relic (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

In a strange twist of history, the Archbishop of Paris was stabbed to death at St. Étienne-du-Mont — where the remaining relics of St. Genevieve are held — while leading a novena for St. Genevieve in 1857. Eliphas Lévi — the infamous occultist, as well as former seminarian at St. Sulpice — claimed he witnessed the whole thing, and that the murderer had previously approached him for a book of spells to conjure the devil with.

The gnomon in St. Sulpice (photograph by Allison Meier)

You can still visit St. Sulpice for yourself of course. It’s truly a church fit for an occultist — Dan Brown set parts of The Da Vinci Code here and gave its gnomon a conspiratorial backstory. (The church has posted a somewhat aggravated sign in English letting fans of the book know that the gnomon’s portrayal in the book is not accurate, it’s honestly just an early time-measurement device.)

Memorial to the Martyrs of September (photograph by Elizabeth Harper)

You can also find a memorial to the Martyrs of September in St. Sulpice. These were the 191 Catholic clergy members who were were hacked to pieces by a mob of revolutionaries on September 2 and 3 in 1792. If you take a five-minute walk over St. Joseph des Carmes on a Saturday at 3 pm, you can see a shrine that houses some of the bones of the monks who were killed over those two days.

St. Germain l'Auxerrois (photograph by gnperdue/Flickr user)

But of course, if you change your perspective a bit you can see how the revolutionaries thought the Catholic establishment had it coming. Over the centuries Catholicism shaped French culture; they certainly committed their share of atrocities. Consider the bells of St. Germain l’Auxerrois — they were rung in 1572 to signal the beginning of the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, an event that left an estimated 30,000 Protestants dead throughout France. And then there’s the case of the Cloître des Billettes, or the place “where God was boiled.”

Stained glass window of Jonathas boiling the communion wafer in Saint-Etienne du Mont in Paris (via Wikimedia)

In 1290, a Jewish man named Jonathas was accused of desecrating a communion wafer where this medieval cloister now stands. He allegedly stabbed the consecrated host and it bled, so he tried to boil it and it turned into an image of Christ. As a consequence of this rumor, Jonathas was burned alive and the legend went on to plague Jewish communities all over Europe, where it frequently ended in execution or forced conversion.

St. Médard in snow (photograph by Marie-Lan Nguyen)

Not all the history behind these sites is so bleak of course. The story of St. Medard, a parish church near the natural history museum, looks charmingly kooky by comparison. If you go there, you might notice that the cemetery is locked. That’s because back in 1731 a group of people called the convolutionaries took to eating the dirt from the grave of a popular deacon. They did it to bring on miraculous seizures that made them sing, dance, speak in tongues, and bark like dogs. For a while you could even rent a chair in the cemetery to watch the show. Sadly, in 1732 dirt-eating was banned and the cemetery was locked up. The convolutionaries took their meetings underground and basically devolved into a sadomasochistic cult.

The incorrupt  St. Catherine Labouré (photograph by André Leroux)

Last but not least on our tour are the four seemingly incorrupt bodies of Paris. I say seemingly because only one is truly “incorrupt” in the eyes of the church and that’s St. Catherine Labouré at the Chapel of the Miraculous Medal. To the left of her glass casket is a wax effigy that contains the relics of St. Louise de Marillac (sometimes mistaken for an incorrupt corpse). To the right is the incorrupt heart of St. Vincent de Paul. It looks quite corrupt, not fresh and red as one might expect, but it’s considered incorrupt because it’s managed to remain in one piece while the rest of his organs decomposed.

Relics of St. Vincent de Paul (via Wikimedia)

The rest of St. Vincent de Paul’s relics are located just down the block from the Miraculous Medal. At the Chapel of the Maison-Mère you can climb a staircase on the side of the altar to get a closer look at the wax effigy that St. Vincent’s relics are housed in. It’s remarkably realistic. Although St. Vincent is best known for his work with the poor and with children, he was also dedicated to ransoming galley slaves, as he spent several years enslaved by pirates. (If only that part of his hagiography was depicted in more stained glass panels around the city.)

There’s also one more corpse, far less well known than those three, but just as interesting: St. Julian Eymard. He rests in the tiny Chapelle du Corpus-Christi on an unassuming little side-street. St. Julian was actually found to be incorrupt when he was exhumed in 1876, but the priest in charge of the exhumation thought he could assist his incorruptibility a little and applied carbolic acid to the corpse. Of course, this caused the corpse to immediately decompose, so a wax effigy was built for him. Why they decided to portray him with his eyes open, staring into the void, is a mystery to me.

When you finish going to all of these places, there are plenty more to explore on this map and on Atlas Obscura with even more strange and macabre histories behind them. Skip the Eiffel Tower and spend a day with the saints.

Map of the relics and hidden wonders of Paris.

Read more about the wandering body parts of the holy dead at Elizabeth Harper's All the Saints You Should Know.