#salomania

#salomania

Archaeologists estimate that fishers in Peru have been using the reed boats for approximately 3,500 years. Elaborate ceramics dating back to the sophisticated Moche culture (AD100-800) and the later Chimu civilisation (900-1470), depict figures astride the craft, which was called a tup in the now-extinct Mochica language. They are believed to be among the first crafts to be used for riding waves, possibly predating Polynesian proto-surfing in Hawaii.

Visually striking and intricately crafted, the traditional armour and weaponry of the Kiribati islands in the Pacific Ocean were built from coconut fibre, human hair, sharks' teeth and porcupine fish. Yet, fearsome and lethal as these objects were, the people of this remote archipelago weren't especially warlike, as British colonists had long assumed, but were instead part of a ritualised style of combat intended to keep violence between clashing groups to a minimum.

In Need of Seawater is not simply a documentary about poetry-it is an experience shaped by memory, voice, and lived history.

The Maison has long shone a light on exquisite art. Toward the end of the 19th century, the Maison commissioned Czech artist Alphonse Mucha to create its first advertisement, the first such collaboration between a Champagne house and an artist. Since 2008, 12 contemporary artists have been entrusted with Ruinart's Carte Blanche to reimagine not just the Maison's legacy, but also its long-standing pledge to sustainability.

A sprawling tale of two Singapores, the short documentary Sandcastles draws connections between Singapore, Michigan - a 19th-century ghost town swallowed by sand following widespread deforestation - and the island country of Singapore, where rapid development and land reclamation has, for decades, been enabled by the importation of sand. More poetic exploration than call to action, the work surveys waterways, cycles of development and the transient nature of sand - deceptively sturdy over short timescales but, over decades, quite volatile.

Candidly, most people visiting the British Museum's Hawaii exhibition probably walk in with a lot of stereotypical preconceptions about the island nation. And will walk out with a totally different understanding of it. Understandably, we probably think of it as not much more than the Pacific island nation that's part of the USA, home to Pearl Harbour and the long-running TV show Hawaii 5.0.

As of February 2026, the island is offering those who can work remotely for companies outside of Sri Lanka the chance to apply for a year-long digital nomad visa, so here is everything you need to know about how to apply if you're eligible. Firstly, you need to be at least 18 years old and earning a minimum of €1,700 (or around $2,000) per month.

Archaeologists have discovered what they believe is the world's oldest known rock art, in a cave off the island of Sulawesi, Indonesia. The hand stencil has been dated to at least 67,800 years ago, making it 1,100 years older than the earliest example of rock art that was known about before this, produced in Spain by Neanderthals. The Sulawesi work may, its finders say, provide insights into the migration of early humans to Australia.

'Orcas are psychos,' quipped a close friend recently. He wasn't joking, nor was he ill-informed. In fact, he is probably the world's leading historian of whales and people. He had just watched a BBC Earth clip, narrated by David Attenborough, in which three killer whales separate a male humpback calf from his mother in the waters of Western Australia. The video's closing footage, with two of the orcas escorting the naive youngster to his imminent death, resembles nothing so much as a kidnapping: