Mereja

Author: M Rebekah Otto and Dylan

  • Kymerica

    Image of Kymerica located in

    Kymerica

    The historical markers of an alternative universe

    Kymaerica, the land referred to as America in our world, is just a part of Kcymaerxthaere, a parallel universe, described by its website as “a global work of three dimensional storytelling.”
    Eames Demetrios, the “Geographer-At-Large” of Kymaerica has erected bronze plaques throughout America (and many other countries) dedicated to historical sites of Kymaerica. You can also visit the Embassy Row of the Parisian Diaspora in Paris, Illinois. (You probably didn’t know that, in Kymaerica at least, the town you call “Paris” was settled by the Parisian Diaspora.) In this alternative history, there was a Civil War between Northern and Southern California; the Samurai colonized Santa Barbara.
    In recent years, he has taken the project around the world. A large permanent installation in Australia is dedicated to one of the creation myths of Kymaerica. In India a group of schoolchildren drew what they imagined one of the Kymaerican myths should look like. Their images were then engraved in stone and set into the ground.
    You can track new spottings of Kcymaerxthaere at the Kymerica blog: http://kymaericablog.com/

    Read more about Kymerica on Atlas Obscura…

    Category: Strange Statues, Relics and Reliquaries, Lost Tribes, Outsider Architecture
    Location:
    Edited by: M Rebekah Otto, Dylan

  • Dominion of British West Florida

    Image of Dominion of British West Florida located in Florida, US

    Dominion of British West Florida

    Are the Gulf States actually part of the British Commonwealth?

    Certainly, the British government used to control the thirteen original colonies, and though you may have thought that the Revolutionary War (and the War of 1812) solved that conundrum, according to some, you would be wrong.
    It seems that the southern sections of Mississippi, Alabama, Florida and Louisiana are technically “the Dominion of British West Florida” according to the Treaty of 1763, signed by Charles I.
    In 1810, President James Madison signed the “Annexation by Proclamation” that revoked the land from the Spaniards and claimed it as American soil. There were ensuing battles, but the Spaniards were pushed from the land in 1813. The United States government paid Spain for the land, but never acknowledged that the British had some claim to the land, too. It is historically unclear if the British thought they had some claim to it either.
    In 2005, the Third Restoration effort was begun on the World Wide Web (it is somewhat unclear who is behind it, though the thrust of it can be found here: http://dbwf.net/history/index.html), to petition the Queen of England to recognize British West Florida. Currently the British government refuses to acknowledge the individuals claiming to represent the Dominion, as any claim would disrupt relations between Great Britain and America.

    Read more about Dominion of British West Florida on Atlas Obscura…

    Category: Intriguing Environs, Micro-Nations
    Location: Florida, US
    Edited by: M Rebekah Otto, Dylan

  • The Conch Republic

    Image of The Conch Republic located in Key West, Florida, US

    The Conch Republic

    “We Seceded Where Others Failed”

    We hear the term “third world” tossed around with a much greater frequency than the other “worlds.” Based on an outmoded Cold War taxonomy in which the first world consists of capitalist NATO nations and their allies, the second world of the communist Soviet Union and its allies, the third of former colonies/developing nations, and the fourth rarely mentioned world of stateless nations or peoples.
    The Conch Republic in the Florida Keys has declared that is the world’s first “fifth world” nation: “We exist as a ‘State of Mind,’ and aspire only to bring more Warmth, Humor and Respect to a planet we find in sore need of all three.”
    In the early 80s, South Florida became a conduit for illegal immigrants and illegal drugs. To stem the flow, the United States Border Patrol set up inspection points on the two roads connecting the Florida Keys to the mainland. Key West City was not happy. The federal government did not respond to their protests, and the mayor of the city, Dennis Wardlow, declared “independence” on April 23, 1982. Interpreting the roadblock as a national border, the city decided to become another nation.
    Wardlow, though, is a bit of a joker. His protest was a tongue-in-cheek gambit for attention and a boost in tourism. Though the roadblock was shortly removed, the city continues to joke about its “secession” and hosts an annual Independence celebration each April.
    All residents are dual citizens of both America and the Conch Republic. But non-native Conch Republicans can buy a Conch Republic passport for a very reasonable $100. Though some tourists come for the Conch Republic, most come to see Ernest Hemingway’s House which is also located in the Conch Republic and home to its own oddity, 60 cats descended from Hemmingway’s famous six toed cat. Many of the descendant cats are also six toed.

    Read more about The Conch Republic on Atlas Obscura…

    Category: Micro-Nations
    Location: Key West, Florida, US
    Edited by: M Rebekah Otto, Dylan

  • Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

    Image of Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology located in Oxford, United Kingdom

    Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology

    Used as an example in one of the first dictionary entries for “museum” in 1706

    In the early 1600s, John Transcendent the Elder and his son, the Younger, opened their house as a cabinet of curiosities with natural and man-made specimens from around the world. (The word “museum” had not migrated to the English language, or perhaps English-speakers could not yet conceived taxonomied collections in hulking display cases with explanatory details.)
    The father and son deeded the collection to Elias Ashmole as a gift. After some of his own additions, Ashmole presented the collection to the University of Oxford “as a major scientific resource.” In 1683, this founding gift started what is now the Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology in Oxford.
    When the Oxford University Museum of Natural History was founded in the early 1800s, the Ashmolean lost some of its collection and faced a crisis of identity. Luckily, the budding field of archaeology enabled the museum of shift focus and begin acquiring a larger body of artifacts, from farther back in time and further reaches.
    Again in 2009 the museum underwent major redevelopment. Their new curatorial style unites unexpected artifacts from diverse geographies and cultures together under stylistic similarities. In what they are calling “Crossing Cultures, Crossing Time,” the Ashmolean juxtaposes a Hellenistic figurine of the first century CE to a Buddhist figure from India in the third century CE, tracing the journey of Alexander the Great into India from Greece. The museum understands all cultural history as interrelated rather than isolated.
    Aside from their new approach, the museum has jaw-dropping objects, as well, such as a human skull from 7000 BCE – that’s 9,000 years ago! Their Egyptian collection is one of the largest outside of Cairo, and they have some pretty special coins, too.

    Read more about Ashmolean Museum of Art and Archaeology on Atlas Obscura…

    Category: Wonder Cabinets, Unique Collections
    Location: Oxford, United Kingdom
    Edited by: M Rebekah Otto, Dylan

  • Museum of American Finance

    Image of Museum of American Finance located in New York City, New York, US

    Museum of American Finance

    Ever wanted the laymen’s version of your credit card fine print?

    John Herzog was on the trading floor on 1987, when the market fell 508 points. With a background in finance and a unique collection of financial memorabilia acquired by his wife’s auction house, Herzog began organizing a museum of finance, to better educate the public about the free market and Wall Street.
    The first major exhibit in 1989 focused on Alexander Hamilton, the first Treasury Secretary. Since then, the museum has expanded and undergone major renovations. When it reopened in January 2008, the museum could not have predicted how much the market would change in the coming year. And the public needed the education it could provide.
    Located at 48 Wall Street, the museum is in the oldest bank in the United States, founded in 1784. Only a block from the New York Stock Exchange, The museum celebrates “the spirit of entrepreneurship and the democratic free market tradition which has made New York City the financial capital of the world.”
    Through permanent exhibitions on the history of money, banking in America, and the financial markets, the museum hopes to educate the public about the world of commerce in which they engage everyday.
    When the credit crisis hit, the museum began chronicling the changes and now features a timeline dating back to February 2007 about the causes and impacts of the Recession. It seems Wall Street traders could use a trip to the museum, too.

    Read more about Museum of American Finance on Atlas Obscura…

    Category: Museums and Collections, Unique Collections, Commercial Curiosities
    Location: New York City, New York, US
    Edited by: M Rebekah Otto, Dylan

  • Spam Museum

    Image of Spam Museum located in Austin, Minnesota, US

    Spam Museum

    Ever wanted to can Spam?

    These days ‘spam’ recalls an e-mail folder full of unwanted advances and potential scams.
    But once it was solely a food product, either an abbreviation of “Spiced Ham” or an acronym meaning “Shoulder of Pork and Ham,” depending on who you ask. (Other creative acronyms, or rather ‘bacronyms,’ have been created since, including “Spare Parts Animal Meat.”)
    Hormel Foods, fan of neither the use of the word to describe junk email or the bacronyms would like to remind all of us that Spam is a great cultural artifact and current food product. According to its website, “the SPAM® Museum is dedicated to the delicious meat first created at the Hormel Foods Corporation plant in 1937.”
    The museum has extensive Spam memorabilia dating from World War II, as well as a special exhibit on the role of this meat in World War II diet and culture.Spam is still hugely popular in island cultures, such as Hawaii and the Marshall Islands as a result of WWII. Visitors can also can “spam themselves” and test their Spam knowledge

    Read more about Spam Museum on Atlas Obscura…

    Category: Purveyors of Curiosities
    Location: Austin, Minnesota, US
    Edited by: M Rebekah Otto, Dylan

  • Pitt Rivers Museum

    Image of Pitt Rivers Museum located in Oxford, United Kingdom

    Pitt Rivers Museum

    Ancient Egyptian wigs, South American feather headresses, a bounty of anthropological artifacts in Oxford.

    Augustus Henry Lane Fox Pitt Rivers was an English general, but, more importantly, he was a founder of modern anthropology. Though he designed firearms for the military, Pitt Rivers unexpectedly inherited his great uncle’s estate and became landed gentry. It was with this fortune, that he spent the rest of his life collecting archaeological and ethnographic objects.
    In 1884, Pitt Rivers bequeathed his collection of 18,000 objects (and part of his name) to the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Besides the objects he also bequeathed a unique curatorial eye. Under the influence of Charles Darwin, he organized his objects by type, and within type, chronologically. This chronological organization demonstrated the evolution of human artifacts over time, a strategy we see in many contemporary museums but which was revolutionary compared to the haphazard curiosity cabinets of the era.
    Since its founding, the museum has acquired more than 300,000 objects, donated from scholars, anthropologists and travelers. Due to its large collection, the display cases are packed and exhibitions change with great frequency. In the museum today the objects are grouped by function, showing the evolution overtime of baskets or “smoking and other stimulants.”
    The Pitt Rivers Museum is a museum within a museum, and the larger Oxford University Museum of Natural History offers exhibitions on Geology, Mineralogy, Zoology and Entomology.
    The Upper Gallery of the Pitt Rivers Museum will reopen on 1 May 2010, with the firearms and other weaponry.

    Read more about Pitt Rivers Museum on Atlas Obscura…

    Category: Natural History, Unique Collections
    Location: Oxford, United Kingdom
    Edited by: M Rebekah Otto, Dylan

  • German Butcher’s Museum

    Image of German Butcher's Museum located in Boblingen, Germany

    German Butcher’s Museum

    Sausages, schnitzel, and weiners

    Since we humans settled down into agricultural communities and domesticated animals, about ten thousand years ago, we have been pickling vegetables, salting meats, and aging cheese. Butchering, in particular, seems an ancient art, with rituals and practices dating back to our oldest ancestors, the hunters. Historically speaking, stuffing meat into intestines came later, but eating animals has been an integral part of human development.
    The Germans take that very seriously, and the German Butcher Museum shows a curious visitor all you could want to know about meats. The museum is Boblingen, in southern Germany about 200 km from Zurich, Switzerland.
    The museum showcases the tools and methods of the craft of butchery, with life-size shops from the 1400s to the 1900s exemplify the development of meats. Examples of butchery in popular culture and art are also on display.
    The museum devotes special attention to the importance of guilds in the development of butchery, with a sample guild hall and antiquated documents. Guilds were like unions but emphasized the skill of the craft and aided in professional development of an early modern sort.
    True to their craft, the museum hosts an annual Schlachtfest, or Slaughter Party.
    (This museum is not to be confused with the German Bratwurst Museum. Also dedicated to meat but more narrowly focused, the Bratwurst Museum is in Holzhausen in central Germany.)

    Read more about German Butcher’s Museum on Atlas Obscura…

    Category: Unique Collections
    Location: Boblingen, Germany
    Edited by: M Rebekah Otto, Dylan

  • Komboloi Museum (Greek Worry Bead Museum)

    Image of Komboloi Museum (Greek Worry Bead Museum) located in Nafplio, Greece

    Komboloi Museum (Greek Worry Bead Museum)

    The secular incarnation of a religious meditation

    From Catholic rosaries to Buddhist japa mala, strings of beads handled methodically are thought to calm the mind and the spirit. The Greek komboloi are small strings, like bracelets, with stones. Unlike rosaries, though, they have no religious connotation; they are used to relieve stress.
    In 1963, Mr. and Mrs. Evangelinos became interested in komboloi and in 1998 finally opened a museum dedicated to their passion. On the first floor, a workshop makes new komboloi from older patterns and refurbishes crumbling komboloi. The second floor features worry beads from many different religions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity) and traces the circuitous history of the beads. The largest collection, though, is of Greek komboloi. Religious beads typically are associated with prayers and contain a specific number of beads. Komboloi vary in length and material, but they are typically made from amber or coral, because those stones are said to have the best feel.
    Of course, the museum shop sells komboloi for the stressed-out traveler to bring home. The Greek Folk Art Museum is also around the corner.

    Read more about Komboloi Museum (Greek Worry Bead Museum) on Atlas Obscura…

    Category: Purveyors of Curiosities
    Location: Nafplio, Greece
    Edited by: M Rebekah Otto, Dylan

  • Plantin-Moretus Museum of Printing

    Image of Plantin-Moretus Museum of Printing located in Flanders, Belgium

    Plantin-Moretus Museum of Printing

    Most prolific publishing house in the 1600s open to the public

    As print is slowly killed (or at least deeply altered) by the advent of the Internet, relics of the early era of print become even more novel. In the early 1500s, the printing press was less than a hundred years old, italic had recently been invented by Aldus Manutius, an Italian typographer, and in many places, printing was still a crime. Christophe Plantin, a printer from Paris, fled the city for Antwerp because printers were being burned at the stake for heresy.
    In Antwerp, Christophe Plantin first began printing by making books for private households, then in 1555 he started the first commercial printing press and began printing books. As his operation grew, Plantin brought on Jan Moretus, who spoke Latin and Greek as well as modern languages, and soon became his son-in-law. The press continued for over three hundred years, until 1867. Their offices are now, appropriately, a museum of printing.
    So what does this collection contain? A Bible from 1450? Check. Two of the oldest printing presses ever? Check. A Gutenberg Bible? Check. The Font Garamond? Check. Amazingly this museum houses the world’s only copy of the original Garamond letter dies. It was these catalogs of letter dies that are called upon when a particular fonts is digitized, which form the basis for the Garamond font which you can now pull up in any text editor.
    In 2002, UNESCO honored the museum as a World Heritage Site. It may soon be one of the few places we can go to learn about the history of physical print, seemingly an increasingly ancient art. (There are also lots of Rubens’ paintings, just because they can.)

    Read more about Plantin-Moretus Museum of Printing on Atlas Obscura…

    Category: Unique Collections, Retro-Tech
    Location: Flanders, Belgium
    Edited by: M Rebekah Otto, Dylan