Objects Of Intrigue

In the 19th century, Scottish scammer Gregor MacGregor made a fortune selling land in Poyais.

Legends swirl around the University of Edinburgh’s mysterious graduation bonnet.

At least not as initially planned.

When Broadway was a broad way and Wall Street was a wall.

Before vaccines, pseudoscientific folks remedies for the deadly virus involved mysterious animal-vegetable-mineral hybrids.

Early 20th-century migrants from Europe had to be on their guard against marriage brokers, card sharps, ghost mediums, and more.

And did the unthinkable to the mummy inside.

Are the mysterious mice adorning this 1,800-year-old helmet part of an ancient joke?

The sacred scraps were meant to be ingested.

The gorkon is a marvel of heat retention that's at risk of disappearing.

And what it took to save the iconic film prop for a new exhibit—hint: lots of steam.

The 400-year-old fabric extends the iconic pattern's history in Scotland by over a century.

From "unabridged" to "slanguage," Madeline Kripke's library is a logophile's heaven (or hell).

The Digital Florentine Codex’s three languages and thousands of hand-painted illustrations provide a window into culture, war, and daily life.

“They are unpolished and unvarnished.”

The live, jewel-encrusted beetles called maquechs are tied to an ancient legend, but some worry for their future.

In 1934, American Communists translated a Stalinist book about revolution into a children’s game. Curiously, it didn't catch on.