Noumenal News

Forget knife-carrying hoodies, people in the
mid-17th century had far more dangerous opponents to worry about…
such as spirits and fairies.

Also, pitchforks, stools or even a trusty
frying pan were the weapons of choice when it came to street fights, a
newly unearthed burial register has shown.

The document reveals the deeply superstitious – and often brutal – side of […]

A computer in antiquity would seem to be an anachronism, like Athena ordering takeout on her cellphone.
But a century ago, pieces of a strange mechanism with bronze gears
and dials were recovered from an ancient shipwreck off the coast of
Greece. Historians of science concluded that this was an instrument
that calculated and illustrated astronomical information, particularly
phases of […]

Mystical rock art from the Kimberley has been appearing in strange locations.
Strange graffiti has been appearing around Perth which isn’t the usual spray painted tags or homeboy symbols.
As president of the Kimberley Society, Mike Donaldson is familiar with the haunting image of the Wandjina.
Wandjina are one of the most significant spirits in the North and […]

A manuscript containing previously unpublished information about witch
trials in northern Sweden has been discovered in a museum archive in
northern Sweden.
“A true tale about the nature of witchcraft” was penned by a minister called Jöns Hornaeus.
“Most of the text is already available at the National Library of Sweden,” archivist Göran Gullbro told the Local.
“But until this […]

Visit a national cemetery, and you will see any number of federally
recognized religious symbols adorning headstones. The Star of David is
OK with Uncle Sam, as are over a dozen variations of the Christian
cross. Even the atomic symbol used by some atheists gets a thumbs-up
from the government.
But a Wiccan symbol representing earth, air,
fire, water and […]

FOUR people buried 450 years ago in an English parish had been scared to death by FAIRIES, a historic document has revealed.
Seven were “bewitched” and one was led to a pond to drown by a will o’ the wisp — a ghostly light.
They are among the causes of death in the burial register for the
parish […]

They got the date wrong by some
3,000 years, but the oldest detailed drawing of Stonehenge, apparently
based on first hand observation, has turned up in a 15th century
manuscript.
The little sketch is a bird’s eye view of the stones, and
shows the great trilithons, the biggest stones in the monument, each
made of two pillars capped with a […]

Scientists who recently conducted a high-tech examination of King Tut’s
mummy insist they don’t believe in the “Curse of the Pharaohs.”

Still, some awfully strange things happened when the team X-rayed the boy king’s body with a medical CT scanning machine.

On the way to the Egyptian site, one researcher’s vehicle nearly hit a
child. Then a huge storm […]

A prehistoric “Jaws” that roamed the seas 400 million years ago had the most powerful bite of any living fish.

The extinct fish Dunkleosteus terrelli could bring its jaws together with a remarkable force of 5,000kg (11,000lbs).

Its bite force was double that of a large great white shark putting it up with the most powerful biters […]

MIAMI - Nelson Carrasco works inside a cavernous Hialeah, Fla.,
warehouse, under the unblinking figures of Catholic saints and African
gods, surrounded by his stock in trade: hollowed bull’s horns,
cast-iron cauldrons and blocks of virgin beeswax, said to curry good
fortune.
But the tools of his trade are decidedly less mystical: a sleek Compaq laptop and the Internet.
For years, […]