(Source: kreysa)

A new report makes the case that insects may be essential to feeding a planet of 7 billion people. Why? They’re nutritious, better for the environment than other protein sources and can generate jobs, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

badesaba:

The Conference of the Birds: from a manuscript of the Mantiq al-Tayr (The Language of the Birds) of Farid al-Din Attar, ca. 1600; Safavid period, Isfahan
Opaque watercolor, ink, silver, gold on paper

de-salva:

Figurine / Vinčanska kultura (Vinca/Vinča Culture), 5500–4500 BCE (Belgrade Museum, Serbia)

* Vinca/Vinča Culture: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vin%C4%8Da_culture

life:

Photos from the annual bee market at Veenendaal — “the biggest in Europe,” according to LIFE.

catherinewillis:

BATON DE PAROLE may 2013

materials: wood, Cyperus longus, raffia ligatures.
Photographed in my Normandy studio.

a-ppunti:

Bruce Chatwin in his London apartment in Eaton Place, which no longer exists; in 1982 the author commissioned John Pawson to renovate it. Photo François Halard.

Domus 901 march 2007, Thinking up against a wall, page 71

“I still have, for example, a hanging of blue and yellow parrot feathers, probabily made for the back wall of a Peruvian Sun Temple and supposed to date from fifth century AD. In 1966, I saw a similar piece in the Dumbarton Oaks collection and, on returning to New York went to see my friend John Wise, who dealt in pre-Columbian art in a room in the Westbury Hotel. (…) ‘I’d give anything for one of those’, I said. ‘Would you?’ he growled. ‘How much money have you got in your pockets?’ ‘I don’t know.’ ‘Empty them, stupid!’ I handed him about $250 - and he handed me back $10 with an equally grumpy ‘I suppose you eat lunch.’”

Bruce Chatwin A place to hang your hat, in Anatomy of Restlessness, New York 1996

mythologyofblue:

John Thomson: The Ming Tombs in Nanjing, 1869-71. From “Illustrations of China and its People”, 1873-1874. (via matteoricci)

centuriespast:

Foundation Figure of King Ur-Namma
Mesopotamia, Third Dynasty of Ur 
(ca. 2112–2004 B.C.) 
Copper
Inscribed: Ur-Namma, king of Ur, king of Sumer and Akkad, the one who built the temple of Enlil. 

The first king of the Third Dynasty of Ur, Ur-Namma was responsible for the restoration of old temples and oversaw the extensive construction of new temples and stepped temple towers known as ziggurats. The figure depicts the king with his head and face shaved, his torso nude, and wearing a long skirt. On his head he carries a basket containing the mud to make the temple’s bricks. The first one was molded by the king himself, who is represented in the occupation considered the lowliest in Mesopotamia—”carrying the basket”—for in the presence of the gods the king was a humble servant. The skirt is inscribed with his titles and achievements, Ur-Namma, king of Ur, king of Sumer and Akkad, the one who built the temple of Enlil. He is shown in an act of deep piety, and the sculpture gives us a rare glimpse of royal portraiture by first-rate metropolitan craftsmen of the twenty-first century B.C.

The Morgan Library

catherinewillis:

Le Monde selon Tippi 1997 (by sonenvironnement)

Tippi from Namibia