How to Carve Hieroglyphs Just Like the Ancient Egyptians Did

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In ancient Egypt, writ­ing hiero­glyphs was a high­ly spe­cial­ized skill, one com­mand­ed by only a small frac­tion of the pop­u­la­tion. The fact that there were more than 1,000 char­ac­ters to mem­o­rize prob­a­bly had some­thing to do with that, but the vari­ety of sur­faces on which hiero­glyphs were writ­ten could­n’t have made it any eas­i­er. Depend­ing…

How to Make Coffee in the Bialetti Moka Pot: The “Ultimate Techique”

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In Italy, rough­ly 70% of house­holds have a Bialet­ti Moka Pot. And chances are you have one too. But are you using it the right way? Prob­a­bly not, says James Hoff­mann, the author of The World Atlas of Cof­fee. Above, he sets the record straight, demon­strat­ing the best tech­nique for mak­ing a great cup…

An Introduction to the Codex Seraphinianus, the Strangest Book Ever Published

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Imag­ine you could talk to Hierony­mus Bosch, the authors of the Book of Rev­e­la­tion, or of the Voyn­ich Man­u­script—a bizarre 15th cen­tu­ry text writ­ten in an uncrack­able code; that you could solve cen­turies-old mys­ter­ies by ask­ing them, “what were you think­ing?” You might be dis­ap­point­ed to hear them say, as…

Thomas Jefferson’s Handwritten Vanilla Ice Cream Recipe

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Here’s anoth­er thing you can cred­it Thomas Jef­fer­son with: being the first known Amer­i­can to record an ice cream recipe. It’s one of 10 sur­viv­ing recipes writ­ten by the found­ing father.

Accord­ing to Monticello.org, ice cream began appear­ing “in French cook­books start­ing in the late 17th cen­tu­ry, and in Eng­lish-lan­guage cook­books…

A Tour Inside the Chelsea Hotel: Once Home to Bob Dylan, Patti Smith, Leonard Cohen & More

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We’ve all stayed at the Chelsea Hotel, though most of us have done so only in our minds, through such cul­tur­al arti­facts as Leonard Cohen’s “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,” Bob Dylan’s “Sara,” Nico’s “Chelsea Girls,” Andy Warhol’s epony­mous film that includes the Nico song, or Pat­ti Smith’s Just Kids, which tells of the…