Since ancient times people have been looking for the most effective ways to send their neighbors to their forefathers. Poisons play an important role. It is unknown who was the first to use poisonous mushrooms. Perhaps it was the leader of some ancient tribe, and the fatal properties of concrete mushrooms were experienced beforehand by a certain “mushroom man”.
The brief reign of the Roman emperor Caligula was saturated with poison from beginning to end. Caligula poisoned his predecessor, the emperor Tiberius. The emperor in general was a delicate connoisseur of poisons. He made up various mixtures and tested them on slaves. However, not only slaves got it. After the murder of Caligula, a huge chest of poison was found: each poison was signed by the emperor and was called by the name of poisoned person. The chest was thrown into the sea and caused damage to the environment, similar to the crash of an oil tanker.
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Ambergris is a solid, waxlike substance formed in the digestive tract of sperm whales. It floats in the sea or can be thrown ashore. It is highly valued in perfumery, used in traditional medicine and in homeopathy. At the present time, almost all collected ambergris is bought up by perfumery firms for the manufacture of expensive perfumes.
It is believed that even the ancient Egyptians used ambergris like incense in the temples. In the Ancient East, it was used in perfumery, and later, at the end of the ancient era, people in the West followed their example. Arabs and peoples who lived on the shores of the Indian Ocean, used ambergris in cooking to emphasize the aroma of spices and a bouquet of wines.
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The irresistible charm of women’s hands, covered with bizarre henna tattoos, makes us forget that these patterns are not only an ornament, but also a symbol, a ritual rite, and a talisman. This sophisticated method of decorating the body has been used for a long time in the countries of the East, Africa and Central Asia.
Henna is considered an amulet that protects against negative energy.
The custom to paint the hands and feet of the bride with henna is typical for North Africa and India. Henna is a plant-derived substance and is used to color the skin, hair and nails. Mehndi (or Mehendi) is a form of body art popular in the countries of Asia and Africa. It is used for aesthetic and religious purposes. In the 60s of the last century hippies, who traveled to Asia and Africa in search of exoticness, discovered the tattoos that women made on their wedding day.
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The entire south-eastern part of Venezuela, located in South America, is occupied by La Gran Sabana – the great savanna, which is crossed by the Caroni River, the right tributary of the Orinoco. There are many unusual plateaus with steep, inaccessible walls resembling huge tables. One of the greatest tables is Roraima. It is near Venezuela’s border with Brazil and for a long time it was inaccessible to people. Only daredevils from the Indian tribes from time to time made their way to the enchanted land, as they thought. They told about a wonderful plateau with cascades of waterfalls and magical rivers with red and black waters.
The first European researcher who visited this area in the middle of the XIX century was German Robert Hermann Schomburgk.
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There are many types of vampires in beliefs found all over the world. Some vampires are demons that attack at night, and are associated with night terrors. Vampires also were blamed for plagues, invisible terrors that bothered people at night and wasting diseases that brought death.
Western fiction and film have popularized the vampire as a glamorous and seductive living dead person who bites people on the neck. The victim of the vampire’s bite would become one of the “living dead”. Vampires have no shadows, and cannot cast a reflection in any mirror or reflective surface. Some vampires had the ability to turn into a wolf. These vampires were known as vukodlak.
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The legend about Atlantis appeared more than 2,500 years ago. Atlantis was described as a continent-sized area with rich soil, plentiful pure water, abundant vegetation and animals, natural hot springs. Slaves performed manual labor, allowing a large elite to pursue knowledge, enjoy sporting events, and continually improve upon an already thriving society.
The idea of Atlantis was first expressed in the works of Plato, who stressed that a perfect world exists in Ideas.
In 1882, Ignatius Donnelly (1832-1901) published Atlantis: The Antediluvian World, arguing that all civilization is an inheritance from Atlantis.
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Once, back in the Paleolithic era, a hunter unknown to us scratched the figures of people and animals with a sharp stone on the wall of the cave. The centuries passed … the writing appeared. Signs were carved on stones, painted on papyrus. In Assyria, the signs were written with a sharpened stick on the plates made of wet clay, which were then fired.
In the Middle Ages, people learned to write with pieces of lead with sharpened ends. Since the XIV century, artists in Europe used lead and tin, as well as silver pins for drawing. The great Botticelli made many of his drawings using such pins.
In the middle of the XVI century, English shepherds from Cumberland found a fairly soft and brittle mineral in the ground. The rocks were taken for the deposit of the lead because of the color.
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