Parthenon mosque
In 1687 Ottoman-controlled Athens, the Venetians blew up the Parthenon. The Ottomans built a mosque from its ruins.
Alligator centaur
El Hombre Caimán is a popular Colombian myth about a man who is half man, half alligator – the result of an accident while peeping on bathing women.
The Library Cave
On June 25, 1900, tens of thousands of important historical manuscripts were found in a secret room within the Caves of the Thousand Buddhas in Dunhuang, China, where they had been hidden for nearly a millennium.
The thousand names of Vishnu
The Hindu hymn Vishnu Sahasranāma lists one thousand different names for the god Vishnu. A surprising amount are about his bellybutton.
Christmas cannibals (Part 2)
One of the miracles attributed to Saint Nick is the resurrection of three children before they could be turned into Christmas hams.
The devil’s coins
Coins bearing a picture of the devil with the inscription “Civitas Diaboli” have been found in churches and museums in Denmark, Norway, and England – products of a hoax that began in 1973.
First Jesus
The first pictorial representation of Jesus Christ is insulting Roman graffiti that gives him a donkey’s head.
Cursed stone city
Al-Khazneh, the temple carved out of a cliff in Petra, is the most famous remnant of the Nabataean Kingdom. But to its south lies Hegra, the cursed stoneland city.
Buddhist martyr
Buddhism was made the state religion of Silla (a kingdom in early Korea) because a court official planned his own martyrdom.
Pope vs. music
In 1324, Pope John XXII issued a papal bull condemning the excesses of modern popular music.
The order of the Quran
The Quran contains 114 chapters, but they are arranged neither chronologically nor thematically. Instead, they go from longest to shortest.
Memory culture
Through sophisticated mnemonics and error-checking mechanisms the Vedas, the canonical religious texts of Hinduism, have been transmitted orally for three and a half thousand years with shocking precision in both word and sound.
Ancient dioramas
We all know that Egyptian tombs contained models of servants, boats, and animals to accompany the deceased in the afterlife. But they sometimes also contained model gardens, granaries, bakeries, breweries, stables, and slaughterhouses.
Blessing scam
You are being followed by a ghost. Put all your valuables in this bag. I’ll bless the bag to banish them. P.S. Don’t open the bag for a month afterwards.
Norse Adams and Eves
In Norse mythology, Ask and Embla were the first humans of this world. After Ragnarök, Líf and Lífþrasir will be the first humans of the next world.
