The Leiden Egyptologist Ben Haring deciphered a text on a piece of stone from the fifteenth century BC. This stone was already found twenty years ago in an Ancient Egyptian tomb, but no one understood the text. Haring recognized the hieratic script in this, a quick variant of the elaborate hieroglyp
Dutch is gradually becoming the dominant language in Friesland. Frisian is so little spoken that it starts to behave like a second language. The official name for this is Interferent Frisian. It is Frisian that is interspersed with Dutch expressions and Dutch word orders. The fact that English word
When they first flew, hardly anyone could believe that the Wright brothers had succeeded. Many inventors had tried, but hardly any were as successful as the Americans. Historian David McCullough wrote a solid double biography of the famous brothers. According to two interesting anecdotes, the fasci
Recently researched Gay sapiens teeth mess up all of history. If we thought that our ancestors migrated from Africa to Europe about 45,000 years ago, 47 teeth of at least 80,000 years old have been found in China. How about that? The Out of Africa theory where the superior Homo sapiens quickly conq
Painting changes enormously in the 16e century. The church and nobility are no longer the only clients, resulting in funny paintings about everyday life. The new buyers are the citizens and they laugh at shit and pee humor, partying peasants and brothel scenes. Museum Boijmans van Beuningen is showi
On September 19, 1916, the first three military aircraft landed at Schiphol. Within fifty years, the small airfield in the swampy polder grew into an airport for the jet set, to then serve the mass tourist. How was that possible? The first pilots and passengers were real heroes. Pilots were the ast
The Year of the Book and the Week of Literacy:there are plenty of reasons to discuss the The Book of the Printed Book, an overview of more than five hundred years of the history of printing. Printing and designing books have been closely linked since the invention of the printing press around 1450.
The TwentseWelle museum in Enschede has only been open for a week in its current form. It is therefore your last chance to see the museum in its current design. NEMO Kennislink went to visit and saw a bison, mammoth and forerunner of the computer. “Theres so much to see here!” says a ten-year-old b
I say what I think and I do what I say, these words we know today mainly from populist politicians such as Pim Fortuyn. Proclaiming a political message of simplicity and sincerity, however, was already an important ideal in the early Middle Ages, which deserved to be followed. The cradle of free sp
Recently the long-awaited book ‘On China’ . was published by former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Kissinger was the great man behind the rapprochement between the US and China during the heyday of the Cold War. This helped China out of its self-imposed isolation and thus began a new chapter
A tent needs pegs to keep from being blown away, a ship anchors to keep from drifting. And a house? Youd think that would be solid by itself. But a good foundation is indispensable to prevent houses from sinking into the ground, especially in a former peat swamp like Amsterdam. It used to be a popu
Those who want to look for fossils do not always have to scour abandoned quarries or climb mountains there. Sometimes a quick glance at the kitchen counter, windowsill or curb is enough. Many houses and streets are teeming with millions of years old shells and sea lilies:remnants of a former sea in
Different subjects together can make for a fascinating exhibition. Encounters with the Orient is about linguists in the seventeenth century as well as two archaeologists and their excavations in more recent times. The common denominator is the convergence of two worlds, as a visit to the Allard Pier
Traces of cannibalism have been found on bones of Neanderthals from the Belgian caves of Goyet. Notches, dents and cutting marks indicate that these primordial Belgians were once filleted with stone tools. It was already known that Neanderthals sometimes ate a fellow human being, but it had not been
The origin of words is central to etymological research. A relatively new field within this field of research is the study of loanwords in order to visualize historical language and culture contact. Linguist Peter Alexander Kerkhof conducts etymological research at the University of Ghent. Linguist
Almost summer vacation! Even though the weather doesnt seem to be cooperating yet… But hey, who cares. With our summer book tips from this year you will also get through a rainy summer. Here they are again:the best popular science books of the past year, according to the editors of Kennislink. Beer
Artists and natural historians in the sixteenth century had their hands full with all kinds of newly discovered animal species, about which they still did not know everything. Sometimes not even whether they had legs or not. Marrigje Rikken researched the images of animals from this period for her P
Not only do ships sail through the port of Rotterdam, but you will also find an island, robots and even a naturist campsite. The book The Port of Rotterdam shows the many faces of the most important port of the Netherlands. If you drive through the port area of Rotterdam in the evening, you will
Things have completely turned around in the National Museum of Antiquities in Leiden. The museum urgently needed to renovate its building and kept its doors closed for seven months. The curators seized this opportunity to present a large part of the collection differently. The halls with the materia
Julius Caesar, the illustrious Roman general, has shed a great deal of blood in Europe. He even reported on this with his own hand in his book De Bello Gallico. The question was always:what to take with a grain of salt and what really happened? Scientists have now been able to pinpoint a described s
Frost down to minus fifty degrees. Starvation food rations. And slave labor, so hard that the standards imposed by the guards were almost impossible to meet. How did the Poles, who ended up in hell on earth - mines in Kołyma, cope? For decades, Kolyma has been synonymous with death, hunger and s
July 27, 1794:with the execution of Robespierre and his closest collaborators, the Terror ends It is called Regime of Terror or simply Terror the darkest and bloodiest period of the French Revolution, which began in July 1793 and ended in July 1794, precisely on the 27th, with the execution
Cheops pyramid, lighthouse of Alexandria, the temple of Artemis,… You probably know these heritage gems as part of the Seven Wonders of the World . I invite you to discover one of the most mysterious, the Colossus of Rhodes. Through this article, I invite you to discover the intriguing history of th
Counterfeits in the art world keep historians, researchers, buyers and collectors awake at night. And for good reason! It is estimated that over a dozen percent of the works that we can admire in museums are fakes. How is it possible that even in the best cultural institutions, fraud is not always c